Words Like Swords

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Proverbs 12:13, 18; 13:3, 14-17, 29; 15:1, 28; 18:6, 21; 19:19; 21:23; 29:22: 

It’s said that a normal preacher has one sermon that they give over and over again. A good preacher has two sermons that they over and over. And a great preacher has three sermons that they give over and over. Now I don’t know how absolutely true that is, and I like to that I’m at least a good, or maybe even great preacher, although 80% of preachers think they are above average, which makes you wonder about that other 20%, but I do find that I come back to similar themes over and over again. I don’t always know if that’s because scripture repeats these themes over and over again, or if it’s because I think we need to hear them over and over, or maybe it’s that I need to hear them over and over again. And one of the unspoken confessions of most preachers is that we preach as much to ourselves, or maybe sometimes even more to ourselves, than we do to those who are hearing this message. But today’s message is one of those themes that I keep coming back to and in this case I do think it’s because we need to hear it today maybe more than eve.

I couldn’t find a count as to exactly how many proverbs are actually contained in the book of Proverbs, nor did I take the time to count them myself, although most sources put it between 800 and 900, but there are around 150 proverbs that deal with anger and words and the mouth. Outside of the Proverbs that talk about wisdom or folly, this has to be close to the most of any theme found in Proverbs, of which we only heard a small sampling of them in this morning’s readings, but I hope it was enough to begin to give you a feel for what these proverbs sound like.

Give Us Power

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Mark 10:35-45:

Exactly two weeks before he would be assassinated, martyred for his work for racial and economic justice, and calls for peace, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., educated at a United Methodist school, preached his last sermon. Entitled “The Drum Major Instinct” it was based on the passage that we just heard from Mark. And what King said was that there is a natural tendency in most people, and maybe all people, to want to be out front. And in being the one out front it also give us the glory, people applaud us directly, even if it’s meant for the whole band, but we are separated from them as well, leading the way. And yet that’s the opposite of what Jesus has called us to in the life of discipleship, and we see that in the audacious request, or perhaps we might even say brazen request, that James and John make to Jesus. And yet we shouldn’t be all that surprised, because as we have encountered several times already as we have made our way through Mark, the disciples continue to not get or understand what Jesus is telling them and teaching them about discipleship.

As I’ve said before, Mark likes to group stories and themes together, to sort of serve as a framework of emphasis. And so two weeks we heard Jesus’ first passion prediction, which was then immediately followed by a teaching by Jesus about discipleship. And why was that teaching necessary? Because Peter rebukes Jesus for the passion prediction. And so Jesus tells them ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” That’s chapter 8, and as a reminder that happens after Jesus heals a blind man. Then in chapter 9, along with the story of the transfiguration, which we will come back to in two weeks, Jesus gives his second passion prediction, and this time we are told specifically that the disciples don’t understand what he is saying and they are afraid to ask him to explain it. And then to show us how much they don’t understand, they begin arguing amongst themselves about who is the greatest, and in overhearing this Jesus tells them “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Now the truth is that there is a hierarchy within the disciples, that there are three who seem to be in positions of prominence, or at least preference, and those three are Peter, James and John, although it’s not clear what part they play in the argument about greatness or if there is jealousy amongst the other disciples for their position. But, we have two passion predictions, two examples of the disciples not getting it, and then correction and teaching from Jesus about discipleship. So surely they must be starting to understand right?

Feel the Rhythm! Feel the Rhyme! Get On Up, It's Bobsled Time!

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was 1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-11, 32-49:

In preparation for the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, Nike put up a billboard that said “You don’t win the silver, you lose the gold.” According to Nike, it was supposed to be inspiring, but for US wrestler Townsend Saunders, an Arizona State alum, when he walked out of the arena wearing a silver medal, he said those words stung. “It’s not terrible for everyone else to read” he said, “It’s just terrible for every silver medalist.” He went home depressed thinking he should have given more effort and won gold. “It was an honor to represent my country,” he said, “but to have come so close.” Eventual he came to terms with his loss and realized that not very many people have a silver medal either.[i] And really, the billboard seemed to be in opposition to many of the things the Olympics represent.  Baron de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, said “The important thing in the Olympic Games in not winning but taking part. The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.” And that, I think, is one of the things that make the Olympics great. Because while there are certainly those who win, who mark themselves as great, that we celebrate, people like Jesse Owens or Simone Biles or Michael Phelps, we are often just as amazed by those who give everything even know that they have little chance of winning. The Olympics are just as much, or maybe even more about those athletes. And so perhaps with that idea it’s appropriate that today’s film is Cool Runnings about the Jamaican Bobsled team who first participated in the 1988 Olympics in Calgary.

In trying to find films for this series, I was looking for a film about someone who was expected to win and didn’t, but there aren’t a lot of them out there. And so the next best option was films that celebrate the mere act of competing and there are some good films that do that, and this is one of the best. But, we do have to be honest and say that it says that this is based on a true story, and that is true. There was a bobsled team from Jamaica, and there are a couple of other things that are true from the story, but most of the rest of it is made up for entertainment purposes, and so that does mark this story as different from other Olympic films. It’s still very entertaining, but don’t take this as what actually happened, and in it also has a bigger connecting to the story of David and Goliath.

For Thine Is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever. Amen.

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Acts 2:1-21 and Matthew 6:5-13:

Today is Pentecost Sunday which represents the beginning and end of many things. The first is that it represents the end of the season of Easter and the celebration of the resurrection and the beginning of what is known as ordinary time. ordinary in this sense not meaning common, but from the word ordinal, or number, and so next Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost, and so on all the way until we reach Christ the King Sunday and the beginning of Advent in November. It also represents that end of Jesus’ in person ministry on Earth and the beginning of the mission and teaching of the disciples through the formation of the church. It is the end of one way of the disciples experiencing God, through the person of Christ, and a new way of experiencing and knowing God through the gift of the Spirit, because Jesus said that when he ascended to the Father that he would not leave us alone, but would send the Spirit, the advocate to be with us. And so the gift of the Spirit represents a new beginning, and when we receive the Spirit what did Jesus say we would also receive? Power. And that will become even more important in a moment. And as we celebrate our graduates today we recognize that graduation is the end of one phase of life, whether high school or college, and the beginning of something entirely new. Something different. And so these beginnings and ends are also seen as we complete our series on the Lord’s Prayer, not only because we end the series, but because the last part of the prayer leads us from prayer into the world.

As I’ve been saying the Lord’s prayer is typically seen as having six petitions, after the opening of our Father, or literally the Father of us. There are three petitions about God, for God’s name to be hallowed, for God’s Kingdom to come and for God’s will to be done. And then there are three petitions about us, for our daily bread, for forgiveness and for God to lead us and deliver us. And then we close with what is known as the doxology, “for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” or sometimes “forever and ever. Amen.” And I’m hoping that you all noticed that this part of the prayer was not included in the prayer as we have heard it from Matthew’s version every week for the past six weeks. Nor is it included in Luke’s version of the prayer found in chapter 11. And why it’s not in the gospels but is found as we say it as Protestants begins to be encapsulated in why it’s called the doxology.

For us know, when we hear the term doxology, many of us think immediately of the song that gets sung after the offering, and it sort of has the same purpose. A doxology is a hymn or phrase added to the end of a psalm, canticle or hymn in praise of God. This has roots in Jewish practice, and so would have been very familiar to Jesus and the disciples. And for most of us, hearing the Lord’s Prayer without the doxology just seems rather strange, and it’s a rather abrupt end. This has led some scholars to speculate that it probably didn’t originally end this way, that because doxologies were used in Jewish prayer that the Lord’s Prayer probably included something similar, even if it wasn’t these exact words, but that his ending wasn’t known to either Matthew or Luke, or more likely to the source from which they got their material. And yet, for those of you who were raised Roman Catholic, it doesn’t sound strange at all because you were used to praying it without the doxology being there.

And so then the question becomes, if Matthew and Mark didn’t know these words, or potentially didn’t know them, then where did they come from and where they originally a part of the prayer? And the answer is we simply don’t know. The majority of the early church fathers who wrote commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer, do not have anything about this ending, nor is it contained in the Vulgate, which is the Latin translation of the Bible. But, we do know that the doxology was known and can be dated to the early church because of a book that is known as the Didache, or sometimes also called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. As the second title indicates, it is a collection of teachings about the early church and it is broken into three parts. One is on ethics, the second is on the rituals of the church including baptism and the Eucharist, and the third is on the organization of the church. There is much debate about the dating of the document, with some speculating that at least parts of it date to as early as the council of Jerusalem in 49-50, which would make it one of the earliest documents we have. Others date it towards the end of the 2nd century, with a general consensus of most scholars now dating it the 1st century, but probably towards the end, or at least that being when it was compiled. But, the point is, the Didache also contains a version of the Lord’s Prayer, which it instructs people to pray three times a day, although the times for the prayer are not given. And the Didache says that we are to pray thus: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, as in Heaven so also upon earth; give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into trial, but deliver us from the Evil One, for thine is the power and the glory forever."

This passage is important then for several reasons. One is because even though the doxology is not found in our earliest and best manuscripts of Matthew and Luke, it is found here, and so we know that it probably dates to the earliest days of the church. Second, because this version is a little different than Matthew and Luke’s versions, which are different from each other, we also know that this prayer was circulating amongst many different Christian communities, adding credence to its probable origin with Christ himself. Which leads into the third point which is that we know that this prayer is not just important to us today, or it didn’t gain in importance over time, that it was important to the earliest church because the Didache instructs praying it three times a day. It doesn’t explain why Mark and John don’t include the prayer, at least not in the form we have it and pray it, but it clearly shows that the Lord’s Prayer was widely known and important to the church. And the doxology was also know. In the Orthodox Church, the doxology is offered just before communion. In the Protestant tradition, Luther included the doxology in his translation of the New Testament into German, and so he was obviously aware of it, as did William Tyndale in his English translation, which I have referred to several times on translation issues of why we pray it the way we do in English.

But let’s get to the rub of what this means for the prayer and for us, and to do that we return to what we also discussed last week in the petition about temptation and the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. In either the second or third temptation, depending on which gospel we are reading, Jesus is taken up to the highest point in Jerusalem, and in Luke’s version says, “And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” And so, what the devil says here are all the kingdoms that could be yours, and we should ask what it means that here the devil says that they are his, and with them comes glory and authority, which I think we could also see as power. 

And so we should be seeing again a direct connection here between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world that we talked about when we petitioned for God’s Kingdom to come, and also remembering that I said that one of the reasons I think Reign of God is a better term is because we instantly think about geographical boundaries when we think Kingdom. That’s what the devil is offering. But the reign of God is not just about geography, it’s also about hearts and minds and lives. That we are going to be a part of the reign of God. We are participating in it through everything that we do; in seeking to do God’s will and seeking to bring glory to God’s name. And so what the doxology to this prayer reminds us of is that it’s not about us, or the Kingdoms of this world, it’s about God. Because it’s about God’s Kingdom and God’s power and God’s authority, and to know that those are different than the world.

And that should become clear because of what comes immediately before this right? Because what have we just prayed for? Bread, and forgiveness and leadership and delivery from temptations and evil. And again as we touched on, the kingdoms of the world, and in particular for the first hearers of this prayer the Kingdom of Rome. And Rome wants you to think they will do all of these things for you, but who do they bring that about? The same way that all kingdoms of the world bring it about through violence and repression. But God’s reign is different, and we are saying that whereas Rome may promise these things, they don’t and won’t always deliver and some days you may be on their good side, and some days you may not, and more importantly their promises are not forever. But God’s promises are forever. And so we read in 1 Chronicles, which may be where the doxology originated, or is at least inspired by, which has David proclaiming, “Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel, for ever and ever. Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.”  (1 Chron 29:10b-11) That is this has been a prayer of celebration for a 1000 years, and it continues not just in the prayer but we even hear a similar claim in Revelation.

And what God is also willing and able to do is to share and call us to participate in that Kingdom, because what do we receive when the Spirit comes upon us? Power. The power of the Spirit comes upon us to do God’s work in the world, to bring God’s kingdom to the world, to do God’s will in the world, to bring glory to God’s name, by feeding the hungry and giving forgiveness and seeking to live always in God’s righteousness. And so what God’s Kingdom and power and authority remind us is that it’s not about us, and I know that’s really hard for many people to hear and so let me say it again. It’s not about you, it’s not about me, it’s not about us, it’s about God and seeing the world the way that God sees it and not just calling for the Kingdom of God to come, but seeking to bring it about, and we see that in the story of Pentecost.

Because Jesus has already told the disciples that when the Spirit comes upon them they will receive what? Power. And so tongues as of fire come upon them, and this is not destructive fire, this is the fire of life and the disciples are driven from the room in which they have been locked up in and go out into the world to preach the good news, to, quoting from the prophet Joel, dream dreams and see visions and prophesy about God. These are not their dreams and not their visions and not their words, these are the words of God that they are proclaiming, inspired by the Spirit and guided by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit. And that word for power here is dynamis, from which we get words like dynamic and dynamite. This is to live into boldness of God. it’s like having the boldness of a child who has not eaten their dinner but just ten minutes later comes up and asks if they can have dessert or a snack. That’s bold. And so this is an engaged and active and explosive thing that we are called to, to participate in. And so Jesus says, when you receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, here’s what you are going to do. The power of the Spirit we have is not for us. It’s for furthering the work of the Kingdom. So when you receive this power, Jesus says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

So let’s break that down just a little bit. They are to be witnesses to the Kingdom and power and authority of God, to proclaim the good news, first in Jerusalem, and where are the disciples when told this? In Jerusalem, so witness where you are at the moment. Then be witnesses in Judea, which is the territory in which Jerusalem is located, so go out to the surrounding areas, and then comes a harder one. Be witnesses in Samaria. Samaria is to the north of Judea and south of Galilee, in the in-between, which might be good in itself, witness in the in-between places. Except Samaritans and Jews hate each other. And so Jesus is saying go to those people that you don’t like, who don’t look like you, or think like you or act like you. God and be witnesses amongst those people. Sure they might be Red Sox fans and therefore have made bad choices in their lives, but offer them the good news. Offer them bread and offer them forgiveness and offer them love and offer them the Kingdom. In fact, offer them the power of the Spirit so that they too can be witnesses and work beside each other. And then, finally as if to make it even clearer, Jesus then says and be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. Witness to everyone, because that’s what the Spirit will give you the power to do.

Many years ago, someone gave me a poem, and I don’t know who wrote it, not for lack of trying to find out, but it says:

You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say "I."
You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say "My."
Nor can you pray the Lord's Prayer and not pray for one another,
And when you ask for daily bread, you must include your brother.
For others are included ... in each and every plea,
From the beginning to the end of it, it does not once say "Me." 

The Lord’s prayer is not about me or you, it’s about us as creatures made in the image of God seeking to turn our lives, all that we are and all that we have, over to God. to humble ourselves before God, in order to do not what we want, but what God wants, even taking the cup from which Jesus drinks and the baptism into which Jesus was baptized. It’s about that call to love God with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. It’s not our power, it’s not for our glory and it’s definitely not our Kingdom, because all those things are God. and to make that very clear, not only do we say those words, but then we close with Amen, which means something like this is the truth or may it be so. These are not just words that we day because we are taught to say them, or because it’s just what we’ve always done. These are the words of life. These are the words of discipleship.

Who is called to hallow God’s name? We are. Who is called to bring God’s Kingdom here and now? We are. Who is called to do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven? We are. Who is to bring everyone this day their daily bread? We are. Who is to seek forgiveness and give forgiveness? We are. Who is called to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, our baptismal vows? We are. But we don’t do it alone, because we have the power of the Holy Spirit guiding us and leading us, supporting us and pushing us, lifting us up and calling us to go forth even to the ends of the earth to not just spread the good news but to be the good news. We have heard that passage from Isaiah several times that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him. And the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, for we too have been anointed, and when we accept that Spirit, when we claim that Spirit, when we live in that Spirit, we receive what? Power. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, and we have been empowered us to be God’s words and hands and feet in Jerusalem, where we are in all, Judea and Samaria, to friends and foes alike, and to the ends of the earth, so that one day every tongue will confess and ever knee shall bow down at the call of our Lord and savior Jesus’ Christ’s name so that God’s Kingdom will indeed come and God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.

Wrath Versus Peacemakers

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 5:38-48:

One of my favorite movie characters comes from the movie Inside Out and it’s the character of Anger, voiced by the inestimable Lewis Black. For those unfamiliar with the movie, most of it takes place inside the head of a 12-year-old girl, and features the emotions of joy, sadness, disgust, fear and anger as they sort of battle for their spots in how Riley lives her life. And so anger plays a role as one of her natural emotions, and really has some of the best lines in the whole film, including after Riley and her mother receive pizza with broccoli on it, saying “Congratulations San Francisco, you ruined pizza. First the Hawaiians and now you.” Although I actually like Hawaiian pizza. But, as it turns out that even though Joy is trying to deny sadness a place in Riley’s life, she can’t because sadness belongs, just like anger belongs as a primary emotion. 

And so as we think about anger, we have to understand that there is a natural place for anger in our lives, it’s just a matter of what that place is, and why we are angry. After all, we are even told that God “is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” So God gets angry, and when God is angry it’s normally because of injustice or violation of the commandment to love. We even see Jesus getting angry, thinking of him turning over the tables of the money changers is probably the most prominent of them, but would anyone describe Jesus as being an angry person? No, just as when we talked about gluttony we said that while that was an accusation made of him, it would not be how we would describe him.

Heart of Power

This was my message for Pentecost Sunday. The text was Acts 2:1-21:

I have to say that I think Peter’s response in the Pentecost story that the disciples are not drunk as some suppose, because it’s only 9 am is one of my favorite lines of scripture. The way he says it, means we could possibly see him saying, “now if it was three or four, maybe” and thank goodness no one had yet come up with the phrase “it’s five o’clock somewhere.” And the reason why people believe they might be drunk is that many pagan groups, especially mystery cults, used alcohol or other drugs in order to bring about ecstatic or altered states, and so the disciples could certainly be mistaken for that. But what I want to focus on today, at least to start, is the line that begins today’s passage: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” It’s not quite clear if this is just the disciples, including Matthias who was just added to the 12, along with some of the women with them, or the 120 who were followers at the time, although since they are in a house together, it’s probably the smaller number. But there they are all together, and of course this year at Pentecost we are not altogether. We’re not seeing people in wearing red, or singing together the songs of the Spirit. But, like the disciples we sit and wait.

At Easter I talked about living in a liminal time or a liminal space, the in between between what was and what has not yet been. That’s where the disciples found themselves after the crucifixion, in the in-between, and even after they had encountered the risen Christ they were still really in that liminal space because they didn’t know what was going to happen, where the movement was going, what they were going to become. Instead they were still receiving instructions from Jesus and he tells them to stay in Jerusalem, and tells them that soon they will receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which originally had been promised by John the Baptist, at that when the Spirit came upon them they would receive power, and it’s a lot more fun to do that when you can shout power back at me, and they would take that baptism of the Spirit and the power they had received, they would be Jesus’ “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And so they remain in Jerusalem and are there for the festival of weeks, which was a spring harvest festival that took place 50 days after Passover, and thus was also called Pentecost, pente being 50. But here’s where things changed for them, and ended their in-between time.

I've Got The Power

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Acts 1:1-14:

I want you to imagine that you have found a ring that makes you invisible, no one can see you when you have it on. What would you do if you had such a ring? Think about that for a moment and then share with the person sitting next to you what you think you would do….  Now, that scenario is known as the Ring of Gyges, which comes to us from Plato’s Republic, in which a tale is told by Plato’s brother, Glaucon, of whether someone could actually be so virtuous as to not do something even if they knew they could get away with it. He argues that if we had the power of this ring that we would use it for our own benefit, just as the shepherd boy in the story who has found the ring does; using it to seduce the queen, kill the king and become king himself. If you have the power of the ring how could you not use it for your own benefit, or how could you not exercise the power that you have? I was a political science major in college, and I remember the first time encountering this story in a political philosophy class, but before we had read the Republic, the professor asked the same question I asked you. If you had the power of this ring, what would you do with it? My answer was that I would use it to travel the world without having to pay for it, not exactly honorable, but better than some of the other answers, but I still remember one of the women in the class who said that she would refuse to use the ring. She would not trust herself with it and so therefore wouldn’t give in to the temptations of its power. I remember being amazed at that answer, and perhaps she had already read the Republic, because that’s similar to what Socrates eventually says, which is that the person who uses the ring becomes not its master but its slave because they become entrapped by their own passions and appetites in the use of the ring, whereas the person who refuses to use the ring remains in control over their own lives, they retain their own power, and thus remain happy.

But is that our understanding of power? What does it mean to have power or to be powerful? One definition of power is the act of being able to do something, such as having the power of speech. A second definition, and one that is very important, is the ability to get extra base hits, that is the Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge hits for power. Third definition is the one most of us think of, and that is having the power, control or authority, and those are not the same things, over another in order to direct, coerce, influence or use force to get them to do something that you want or need them to do. But, there is another corollary to that, and that is having power not to be forced by another. So, for example, I have the power to tell members of the staff that they need to be at worship, and I have the power to enforce that statement. But while I may have the authority to say to all of you, you need to be at worship, I don’t have the power to enforce it, because you have the power to say “no” to me. So, we now have some understanding of what it means to have power, but what does it mean when we are told that when we receive the Holy Spirit that we will receive… power. Unfortunately, I can unequivocally say that that power is not the ability to get extra base hits, but what does that power actually look like in our lives? Is our power as Christians different from the power of the world? What does it mean to say we have the power of the Holy Spirit?