Monday, March 28, 2016

Easter Sunrise Service: 2016

Easter Sunrise Service:  2016

(Pass out spikes)
Scripture:  Luke 24:1-12
Song:  “Were You There?”

Crucified with Christ: We Identify With Him
Jesus said that our following Him would involve a cross of our own: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23, emphasis mine). In life, there are certain “crosses” to bear — certain hardships, conflicts and limitations. There is a big difference, however, between carrying a cross and being crucified on one, and the difference can be summed up in one word, nails.
In order to live to God and His purposes, I must first die to myself and my own. In order to be crucified with Christ, three “nails” must pierce my life.

The Nail of Forgiveness
We are never more like God than when we forgive; and never more unlike Him than when we won’t. It takes nothing less than divine grace to help us forgive the people we find the most difficult to forgive. In order to forgive, I have found it essential to identify with this moment in Jesus’ life, and to ask myself: Who could be harder to forgive than the person driving a nail into Christ’s innocent soul? If Jesus could forgive them, then surely I can forgive... “
Jesus’ prayer — “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” — has on many occasions helped me move toward forgiving others. When I am offended my natural instinct is to write the offender off. I want to build a long legal defense against them and seal it, case closed. William Ward summed it up well: “We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive.”
Jesus’ prayer looked beyond the individual offense and considered the heart, the soul and the need of the offender. People who pour out anger are usually the ones who have had it poured out upon them. Gossiping souls have usually been exposed to a steady diet of gossip. This doesn’t make it right, but it does bring something essential to forgiveness: A new perspective; one that looks right through the offense and into the heart of the offender. As Archibald Hart says, “Forgiveness is surrendering my right to hurt you for hurting me.”

Song:  “Lord of the Dance”
The Lord’s Supper

The Nail of Mystery
Jesus spent the last three hours on the cross in absolute darkness. When Jesus asked the question of His Heavenly Father — “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” — we never read of Him receiving an answer.
Questions fill our lives, questions for which we often struggle to find answers: What is the reason for this obstacle in my way? Why did I get laid off from work? Why hasn’t my prayer been answered yet?
The reason is mystery. In the Information Age, one of the most difficult things for us to accept is that we don’t have all of the answers. God possesses something we do not: omniscience. He knows everything about you and me, from the first chapter to the last.
We do not know if Jesus ever received an answer from the Father for His haunting question. There is something perhaps more significant, however. At the darkest hours of the cross, when Jesus felt alone and without God in this world, He had fully and finally found himself identified with mankind in all of humanity’s lostness, loneliness and separation from God.
God never rebuked Jesus for expressing His anguish of soul, or for asking such a question. Jesus struggled on the cross, but His struggle was toward God and not away from Him; there is no sin in that. Sometimes the challenges and “crosses” of our lives raise questions that haunt us to the core. But Jesus knew the secret to navigating the mysteries (and hardships) of life: trust. He looked beyond the present crisis and trusted in a Father who can use everything in our lives — the blessings and the struggles — to work His greater purpose.  So use this nail as a way of embracing the mystery, of understanding some questions may not get answered, and to trust the Father God no matter what.

The Nail of Surrender
Jesus’ third prayer from the cross reveals a wonderful attitude about death. Instead of fearing death and its darkness, Jesus committed His spirit into the safe keeping of His Heavenly Father. At the cross His spirit faced things too terrible for us to conceive. But Jesus had a secret: He did not face them alone. Even when He felt alone, He was not. Though His soul felt the sting of separation, His will remained fastened with faith. When His spirit was overwhelmed even to the point of death, He chose to commit His spirit to the Father:  “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
I have often found great comfort in “committing” whatever I am facing to the Lord. When you find yourselves overwhelmed by the responsibilities of parenting in the 21st century  can you say, “Father, into Your hands I commit my children.” When my work schedule has me backed into a corner, I say, “Father, into Your hands I commit my calendar.” The apostle Paul clearly was in the habit of committing his struggles to the Lord, for he affirmed, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12, NKJV).  So use this nail as a symbol of your struggles, and surrendering those nails into God’s hands.

Jesus ID
On the cross Jesus completely identified with us and with our needs — that’s what the Savior of the world does. Now He calls us to identify with Him in His life, His death and His resurrection — that’s what a follower of Christ does. To have the right Easter I.D. we must identify with Jesus on the cross. Too often Christians tend to hurry past the Cross and to rush to the Resurrection. That’s understandable, but regrettable. The Resurrection represents the victory, and all of us love the exhilaration of a victory. But there is so much to consider and experience at the Cross. So much we cannot afford to miss. Unless we look long enough at the Cross, the Resurrection will never mean nearly as much to us as it did to Christ.
Remember, then, that the nails you hold are not attached to anything.  They aren’t a part of the Cross anymore.  They have been separated from it, because they are not holding our Savior there anymore.  As the nails are free from the Cross, so is Christ.  Free and resurrected to be out in the world, giving people the same resurrected freedom to carry on his forgiveness, to embrace the mystery who is our loving God, and surrendering our whole selves to him who died for you, but is now alive forever more.

Amen.


Song:  “I Am The Resurrection”

Closing Prayer

Like A Thick Set Of Trifocals

"Like A Thick Set Of Trifocals"
Luke 24:1-12

"Like A Thick Set Of Trifocals"
Luke 24:1-12

There was a Sunday School teacher who asked her class of 3rd graders what the Resurrection was, and how we celebrate it.  One girl raised her hand and said, "Isn't that when we have turkey and dressing have a bunch of relatives over?"
"No, that's Thanksgiving," replied the teacher.
Another child raised his hand and said, "I know.  Isn't that when we decorate a tree and get lots of presents?"
"No, that's Christmas," said the teacher, getting a bit more frustrated.
Finally, one of the girls stood up and proudly reported that the Resurrection was when Jesus had been dead and on the third day came out of the tomb alive.  The teacher was beaming that one of her students knew about the Resurrection--until the little girl continued.  "But Jesus saw his shadow so we had six more weeks of Winter."
Getting the Resurrection story right is not only difficult because of all that gets mixed up with it at Easter time.  It’s also because it is such an awkward story.  We have to get in touch with that awkwardness if we are to understand what's going on in the Resurrection.  One Christian writer, Jurgen Moltmann, once wrote, "With Easter began the laughing of the redeemed, the dancing of the liberated."  There was laughing going on, but not the kind of which Moltmann wrote.  Not initially, anyway.  It began with laughing ridicule, not joyful laughing.
When the women returned from the empty tomb with their story, the other disciples called it, "nonsense."  What they actually called the story was "garbage."  That's the word they used.  The women's story was trash.  The kind of stuff you throw out with no second thought.
The women's story was not doubted.  It was totally discounted and disrespected.  It's important to see the difference between doubting and being totally discounted.  You only doubt something that just might be true.  Doubt is a way you wrestle with belief.  Doubt is a form of struggling with what you're trying to believe, with what you want to believe but aren't sure you're ready to believe or can.
There was none of that in the other disciple's reaction to the women's story.  Instead the women's story was met with laughter that came from a total lack of desire to entertain what the women were saying--it was, after all, pure garbage.  Garbage you throw out.  Some stuff you have second thoughts as to whether you should have tossed it or not.  Not the women's story.  It was trash through and through, from the disciples point of view.
In 1865, in a small town in Wisconsin, five-year-old Max Hoffman came down with cholera.  Three days later, the doctor pulled the sheets over the boy's head and pronounced him dead.
Little Max was laid to rest in the village cemetery.  That night, his mother awoke screaming.  She had a dream that her son was turning over in his coffin, trying to escape.  Trembling with fear, she begged her husband to go to the cemetery immediately and dig up the coffin.  Mr. Hoffman did his best to calm his wife, assuring her that while her nightmare was indeed hideous, it was still just a dream.  Mrs. Hoffman eased herself back into bed and fell asleep.
But the next night, Max's mother had the identical dream, and this time she would not be denied.  In order to placate his frantic wife, Mr. Hoffman asked his eldest boy and a neighbor to help him dig up the coffin.  When they opened the lid, there was Max, lying on his side!  Though there were no signs of life, Mr. Hoffman brought the boy back to the house so the doctor could have one last look at him.
The doctor worked for nearly an hour trying to revive the "dead" boy, when suddenly Max's eyes fluttered.  The physician immediately placed heated salt bags under the boy's arms, rubbed his lips with brandy, and watched for any other signs of life.  Max came to life!  And after a week was out playing with his friends.
The boy who died at five, lived well into his 80's in Clinton, Iowa.  For his entire life, Max Hoffman's most treasured possession was the handles he had taken from his own coffin.
How would you have reacted, if you were Mr. Hoffman, to his wife's dream induced ravings?  Garbage?  Certainly the delusions of a distraught mother at the loss of her son.  But isn't the word "delusions" just a nice word for "trash"?  Something you'd toss off, or laugh about?  Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.
When the apostle Paul was roaming Asia Minor on his missionary journeys, one stop he made was Athens.  The city was full of armchair philosophers, as well as some fairly famous names behind important thought of that day.  As Paul preached to them about Jesus, he was making point after point with them.  Paul was speaking their language, and they followed his thinking closely.
That is, until, he mentioned the Resurrection.  At that point the crowd dispersed.  But they all didn't just walk away; they walked away laughing.  The Resurrection story, for them, was one of the best leg-pulling stories they'd heard in a long time.  It was funny, because it was so much garbage.
That has been the front line response to the story of the Resurrection, wherever the story has been heard for the first time.  It may be that way for you, this morning.  It may not even be the first time you're hearing the story.  How many, deep down in that secret heart-of-hearts really believe the story of the women?
You may walk out the doors of church this morning, thinking to yourself, It’s just too awkward of a story to bear.  And I wouldn’t blame you.  You'd be in good company--the 12 disciples to name a few.  They all felt the same.  Garbage!  Balderdash!  Pure delusion!  Nonsense!  Not just out of the ordinary--impossible!
But, if you are feeling that way, what will come back to haunt you is that for we who call ourselves Christian, the Resurrection of Jesus is one of, if not the central stories of our faith.  Very awkward, yet fundamental.  It has been that strange mixture ever since the women came back from the tomb that first Resurrection morning.
The women were put in the very uneasy position of telling a very awkward story.  And at that point, that's all it was--a story.  No one had seen Jesus.  The women had only seen the empty tomb.  All they have is a story.  All they can ask the disciples to respond to is a story.

It isn't until later (the two disciples walking the Emmaus road) that anyone actually saw the resurrected Jesus.  So the women were in a position of telling a story they couldn't actually prove, or know themselves if it was true.  The tomb may be empty, as they saw and as they said, but it doesn't necessarily follow that Jesus had come back to life.  A woman may have a dream that her dead son was turning in his casket, but that doesn't make him alive.  Unless you decide you want to check it out for yourself.

Which is what Peter decided to do after hearing the women.  He ran to the tomb.  Luke's gospel tells us Peter "bent down and saw the grave cloths but nothing else."  Peter doesn't get visited by a couple of odd looking fellows in bright shining clothes, like the women.  He doesn't see the resurrected Jesus.  He has less to go on than the women do.  But he still has a mystery.  Where's the body?  He now finds himself in the middle of the women's awkward and frantic story.

And that's where we should find ourselves this morning.  Because, I could wax eloquently, using Jesus' Resurrection as a metaphor about how God brings all the dead things, dead situations, dead relationships back to life.  I've done that before.  I could do it again.

But, really...you know what those dead things are in your life.  I would guess you would have just as hard of a time believing they could really have life breathed back into them as you would a two-day-old dead man could.  And most of our dead situations and relationships have been entombed for a lot longer than two days.

As I said, we could play around with that comparison all we want, but it only side-steps the main story here.  Ultimately, we still have to come back to this uncomfortable story, spoken by the women that Jesus--dead Jesus-- is now Alive Jesus.  At some point we all have to respond to the story of the resurrected Jesus, either with laughter and discounting it as garbage, or with amazement, surprise and wonder.

That is what the Resurrection story, as well as many other of our Christian stories, does:  it asks us not only to believe these awkward tales, but also take them and be tellers of them—to be the women.  When we do that, when we take on these awkward stories, we must realize that at the same time we will be identified as awkward people.  Laughed at.  Discounted.

William Willimon, chaplain at Duke University, wrote in a recent article, "The lens of scripture is a thick set of trifocals which causes one to trip down stairs and walk into closed doors until one becomes accustomed to looking at the world in a mode so peculiar."

The women's Resurrection story is like that thick set of trifocals.  If we choose to look through that story, the whole world is going to look funny, with everything a bit out of place, out of kilter.  But after looking at the world through Resurrection story spectacles, you will be amazed at how clear your seeing really becomes, and how your laughter is changed from laughter at garbage, to the "laughing of the redeemed and the dancing of the liberated."

Monday, March 21, 2016

I AM...The Resurrection

I AM...The Resurrection
John 11:17-27, 38-44

A Roman Catholic priest was discussing the topic of, “When Does Life Begin?” on a talk radio show.  He pointed out that some feel it begins at the moment of conception.  Others who called in were convinced it starts when the baby takes the first breath.  But a woman called in to the show and said “Life doesn’t begin until the last kid leaves home and the family pet dies.”

There are some hard questions surrounding this issue of when life begins.  Often the answers to the questions only lead to more difficult questions.  There are hard realities that people have to deal with, on both sides of the issue.

In this story about the raising of Lazarus, Jesus brings up this issue in reverse:  When does life really end?  There are hard realities on both sides of this issue as well; but this one is more difficult, I think, because Jesus makes them appear both co-mingled and divergent at the same time.

Let’s see if we can sort this out by concentrating on the three commands given by Jesus toward the end of this story.

The first command is, “Remove the stone!”  If I were making a movie of this scene, I would concentrate the drama and the intensity of what was going on in the faces of the men whose hands were upon the stone.  The camera would be focused on their faces and their hands.  The voices of Jesus and Martha would be heard in the background.  The indecision of the faces of the men would highlight the two hard realities of that moment.

First, Jesus speaks his command with an authority no one would disobey.  “Remove the stone.”  The men begin to grunt and groan as the stone begins to move.

But then Martha speaks.  “Master, by this time there’s a stench.  He’s been dead four days!”  The expressions of the men at the stone change.  They can smell the odor.  Surely nothing can be done.  They let loose of the stone and it falls back into place, the stench still coming from newly formed cracks on the rocky entrance.

And here lies the two polarities.  On one side is Martha the realist.  People die.  Lazarus is a people.  He’s dead.  Not only is he dead, he has been dead four days—a statement demonstrating the hopelessness she feels.  We get the feeling that she feels Jesus’ command is almost comically ridiculous.  And we mustn’t forget that she had just made the affirmation of faith, telling Jesus she believed he was the resurrection and the life.

Before we get feeling too snooty with an over superiority of faith about Martha imagine this.  We just had the graveside service for Bobbe Stanion Monday.  Imagine four days later, or however many days later, Jesus is standing over her grave, Cindy and Bill are there, and there’s several guys with shovels.  Jesus commands, “Dig her up!”  How many arguments would we come up for not putting the shovel to the ground?

On the other side is Jesus’ reply to Martha, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see the wonder of what God can do?”  As we look through our movie camera, a new expression transforms the faces of the men at the stone—an expression of anticipation.  A corner of their mouthes betray the fact they realize the finality of death, but in their eyes there is expectation.  They, as well as Martha, suddenly realize that Jesus is saying, “Yes, people die, but can’t you get the sense that something more powerful than death is going on in that grave?  Do you want to see it or not?”

Jesus is asking Martha to make the decision if he should go on, or forget the whole thing.  But I get the idea that Jesus was going to go on regardless of her answer, because it was his purpose that some “see the wonder of what God can do” (Phillips).

The men at the stone, in their anticipation of what was going to happen next, made the decision for Martha, because it says “they removed the stone.”

Before he speaks his second command, Jesus prayed.  What a sense of assurance Jesus has of our God who will not only listen but respond.  We get the same picture of Elijah, standing before the false prophets, praying simply to God, and then fire from heaven comes down and devours Elijah’s drenched offering.  Jesus’ prayer is one of simplicity, profoundness, and assurance all wrapped together.

Then comes the second command:  “Lazarus, come out!”  It is not just spoken; it is shouted by Jesus.”  Imagine the reactions of the people gathered there, to this shout.  On the one side would be the hard core skeptics, laughing at the preposterousness of such a grandstanding show by Jesus.  The one hard reality is that dead men don’t come back to life.  After all, the whole experience points to this reality.  We even make quips that, along with taxes, death is the only other unavoidable in life.

So what happens when another experience contradicts all that has been experienced before?  That is the other hard reality here:  Lazarus did come out!  It has been said that Jesus had to make his command particular (Lazarus, come out) or else all the dead would have risen from their graves.

Isn’t Jesus giving us a glimpse of another whole reality—as if peaking through a key hole and asking us to believe in what he is showing us—even though it may be such a small glimpse?  The question we are being asked by this miracle of Jesus as the resurrection and the life, is NOT, “Is Lazarus, who was dead, now alive?”  All we need to do is look with our eyes, as Martha had to do, for that answer.

I saw a sign in a florist shop that read, “If you don’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, just be here 5 minutes before quitting time.”  It’s hard to deny what is standing right in front of us.

No, the real questions are, “Does Christ have the power to give life in the face of death?” And, “Is there another reality besides death, decay, destruction, and hopelessness?”

Most people who visit the beautiful French Cathedral at Reims hear the story of the magnificent rose window in that church.  During World War II, that  rose window had been shattered.  Immediately following the disaster, the villagers went and painstakingly gathered up all the bits and pieces of glass, down to the tiniest little splinter.  When the war ended, highly-skilled artisans built the new rose window using the shattered fragments of the old.

What Jesus is demanding here is that Martha (and we) believe in him as the one who has the resurrection power that puts back together our shattered lives.  What Jesus is pointing to is a reality that makes this life—as real as it may appear—just a shadowland compared to the new life in him.  What Jesus is demonstrating is a victory over our seemingly hopeless situations, especially death, no matter how long they have decayed.  Even though the weight of evidence may be on the side of “dead people do not rise” (and can we add dead circumstances, dead relationships), the overpowering evidence of Jesus is on the side of “death and hopeless are not the last words.”

The third command that Jesus makes is “Loose him and let him go.”  In this command, after the raising of Lazarus, there can only be one reality.  No polarities now.  Only the fearful work of being free, unbounded with opportunities in a life in God’s reality rather than the former reality of this world.

And what is equally amazing is that we get to participate with Jesus in making that new reality happen.  Jesus allowed others to move the stone and release the bandages.  Jesus calls to life, but we must assist him in the preparation and the follow-up of his work.

We may find it is something very minor, like sharing food.

A number of years ago, in a mental institution outside Boston, a young girl known as Little Annie was locked in what was basically a dungeon in that institution.  It was the only place, said the doctors, for those who were hopelessly insane.  In Little Annie’s case, they saw no hope, consigning her to a living death in a small, unlit cage.

At some point, an elderly nurse, who felt there was hope for all God’s children, started taking her lunch into that basement area of the hospital.  She would eat outside Little Annie’s cage.  The nurse felt that maybe there was a way to communicate something of God’s love and hope to the girl.

In many ways, Little Annie was like an animal.  She would violently attack any person who came into her cage.  At other times, she would completely ignore anyone who came near her.  When the elderly nurse starting visiting her, Little Annie gave no indication that she was even aware of the nurses presence.

One day, the nurse brought some brownies and left them just outside the cage.  Little Annie gave no hint she knew they were there.  When the nurse returned the next day, the brownies were gone.  From that time on, the nurse would bring brownies when she made her Thursday visit.

Soon after, the doctors in that institution noticed a change taking place.  After a period of time they decided to move Little Annie upstairs.  Amazingly, the day came when the hopeless case was told she could leave the institution and return home.  But Little Annie didn’t wish to leave.  She chose to stay, to help others.  It ended up that it was Little Annie who cared for, taught, and nurtured Helen Keller.  For Little Annie was Anne Sullivan.

We must believe that Jesus, as the resurrection, can resurrect seemingly dead end or lifeless situations, and show our belief by assisting him in that work.


Lastly, we must answer Jesus’ question to Martha when he said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the wonder of what God can do?”

Did we catch the glory and wonder of what God was doing through Jesus?  Did we get the connection between this miracle and the Resurrection of Christ himself?  Did we see that it is to God’s glory that new life can be had by us if we only believed in Jesus who is the resurrection and the life?

Some missed it back then.  Reading further in this 11th chapter, John wrote, “From that day on the Jewish authorities made plans to kill Jesus” (vs. 53).  Isn’t it tragically ironic that the very people who witnessed this miracle could think of nothing more than killing the one who brought resurrection life?

According to John’s gospel, this is the pivotal event that brought the downfall of Jesus with the religious leaders.  There is something of tremendous importance here, according to John, that we mustn’t miss.  Our faith rises or falls over this sign of Jesus.  Either we go the way of the Pharisees, or the way of Jesus.

This is the glory of God, the wonder, that Jesus wanted Martha and the rest of us to see.  Without the empty tomb, we are doomed.  As Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “…a people most to be pitied.”  Without Jesus’ overthrow of the one reality behind all hopelessness, we truly would be in a world of chaos and darkness.  “But,” as Paul continued to write to the Corinthians, “But, the glorious fact is that Christ was raised from the dead.”

Now, because Jesus is the resurrection, we hear his overpowering voice say to the tombs of our lives:  “Remove the stone!”  “Come out!”  “Be unbound and free!”

Monday, March 14, 2016

I AM...The Way, The Truth, And The Life

I AM...The Way, The Truth, And The Life
John 14:1-6


If you were to choose three words that would describe how to be an effective person, which three would you choose?  They would have to be three words that would get at the heart of what you would need to build the best person you could be.

Back in the early 1970’s, family therapist Virginia Satir wrote a couple of books that were popular in helping people understand some answers to the questions I just raised.  In her book, Peoplemaking, Satir wrote the following:

Over the years I have developed a picture of what the human being living humanly is like.  He is a person who understands, values, and develops his body, finding it beautiful and useful;  a person who is real and honest to and about himself and others;  a person who is willing to take risks, to be creative, to manifest competence, to change when the situation calls for it;  and, to find ways to accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not.

All that is still important, even though we are nearly 40 years away from when this was first written.  Those are important qualities in what Satir calls “peoplemaking.”

The apostle Paul keyed in on three words that he felt defined the Christian life:  peace, hope and love..."and the greatest of these is love."  Most of Paul's writing about the qualities that should mold every believer had to do with those three words.  Peoplemaking, for the Apostle Paul, involved faith, hope and love.

For Jesus, peoplemaking involved 3 words, also.  But they were different from Paul's.  Jesus' three words were, way, truth, and life.  Jesus used these three words to describe himself.  But in describing himself as way, truth and life, he was at the same time describing what he has to offer people as people struggle with what it means to be a human being.

Jesus always new what is best in helping people figure out being human.  If people are going to give themselves to Jesus, and follow him, that means allowing Jesus to adjust our focus on how to become the best as people.

The question is:  Why did Jesus choose these three words to describe himself and how these three words can lead people into their best life?  Jesus must have felt these three words are strategic to who we are in relation to himself.

Let’s look at these three words and how we can figure out what Jesus was trying to get across to the disciples and us.

“The way.”  Notice that Jesus said he is “the way.”  Not a way.  Which goes well with the meaning of the word in Greek.  “Way” here means “primary road, way or person.”  It isn’t just a way, but the primary way.  Jesus is the primary way among all other ways.

Usually in mythology or other religions there are two or three ways.  Especially in mythology these two or three ways have to do with a person’s destiny.  Which ever way you choose it is your destiny to go that way.  So fate always has a part in this mythological multiple pathways.

Not so with Jesus.  No choices.  No fate.  Just one way.  The primary way.

What’s important to hear in Jesus’ words is that Jesus is the way.  The way is not a road or path.  Or a bunch of rules.  Or a clever little book of wise sayings.  Instead of following a path in life, we follow a person.  We don’t look down at the path, trying to find our way.  Instead we keep our eyes focused on the one ahead of us; we go where he goes; we follow where he leads.  No matter what the path looks like—or even if there is no path—we follow the way, Jesus.

One of the big questions I know people struggle with most is, "What is God's will for me?"  What is God's will in my life?  We think if we could just discover the answer to that question, we would know which path to take in life and we would feel fulfilled as a human being.

Again, notice we are thinking path in that question.  We are wanting God to put us on our personal and unique path, and once we figure it out and start out on that path, life will be good.  But as Jesus is saying here, life isn't about a path, it's about him.  Life is about following him in all things.  God's will for each of you is the same:  Follow Jesus who is the way.  What you make or don't make of your life is your choice.  But the primary thread in all your choices has to be following Jesus who is the way.

It appears at least a couple of the disciples didn’t understand that important distinction.  In their minds, when they heard Jesus say he was the way, they went right to a path with a destination.  "Tell us the way you are going and where you are going," they told Jesus.  Jesus' reply was, basically, it's not that easy.  What he is trying to warn them about is the human penchant to take over the trip.  Once we know the way and the destination, we can take it from there and we don't need Jesus.  Jesus was trying to make it clear to the disciples (and possibly us) that he is both the way and the destination.  We have to trust Jesus as he leads and not get all anxious about where we're going or the path we're on.  "I am the way," said Jesus.  The only response to that statement is get up and follow.  That's how you live a good life.

Secondly, Jesus said, "I am the truth."

It's hard to try and talk about the truth in a presidential election year.  It seems, the more any of the candidates open their mouths, the less truth comes out.  It's like they don't care what the truth is--they just want to fill the air with their inane words, as if they think that's what we want to hear.

It was Mark Twain who said, "It is by the fortune of God that in this country, we have three benefits:  freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the prudence never to exercise either of them."  I think the sentiment behind that quote has to do with all the drivel and lies that come out of our mouths.  Falsehood has mostly to do with our mouths and our speaking.

I think you will agree with me, sadly and with self-judgement--if we are honest--that we are not capable of telling the truth all the time.  Lying seems to be a way of life for many people. We lie at the drop of a hat. The book The Day America Told the Truth says that 91 percent of those surveyed lie routinely about matters they consider trivial, and 36 percent lie about important matters; 86 percent lie regularly to parents, 75 percent to friends, 73 percent to siblings, and 69 percent to spouses.

Here are some basic untruths you may hear a lot:
- The check is in the mail.
- I'll start my diet tomorrow.
- We service what we sell.
- Give me your number and the doctor will call you right back.
- Money cheerfully refunded.
- One size fits all.
- This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.
- I just need five minutes of your time.
- Let's have lunch sometime.

What happens is when life is saturated with lying and untruth, we end up being skeptical of everything people say.  St. Augustine once said, "When regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful."   And that's exactly what has happened.  All things remain doubtful.  We assume, to some degree, what others tell us is not total truth.  In the television show, "House", Dr. House's favorite line was, "Everybody lies."  Sadly, that may be one of the only truths we can tell.

Also, when Jesus says, "I am the truth," we have to believe that also is one of the only total truths there is.  Can we accept with certainty that Jesus not only tells the truth, all the time, but is the truth, all the time?  And that only as we totally immerse ourselves in Jesus will we become part of that truth as well as truth-tellers?  That being in Jesus we will live a life of truth and not lies?

In your struggle with your humanity, and what it means to be human, and what it means to be the best you humanly can, truth has to be a big part of that.  You can't, as I have stated, be a person of truth on your own.  It's not humanly possible.  The only way to be a person of truth, is to immerse yourself in the only one who is the truth.  You have to immerse yourself in Jesus, face his truth, and be that truth.

Lastly, Jesus said, "I am the life."

How about a physics lesson?  Does anyone know what entropy is?  It is the measure of the amount of deterioration within any system.  Basically, whether you knew it or not, the universe, as a system, is in a state of entropy.  The whole universe, and everything within it is breaking down.  Every piece of the universe is in a steady decline into disorder. You might like to think that life is about order and stability and safety.  That's the assumption we make about our lives, our world, our universe.  The universe is predictable.  It is predictably destabilizing and disintegrating.

You can rest easy though.  According to science, this won't completely happen for billions of years.  But keep in mind that entropy is going on right now in your life, in the lives of those you love, your world and the whole universe.  And the universe doesn't care.  It's just marching onward toward that fateful day when everything will totally fall apart.

Cheery little thought, isn't it?  Now, let's go to the movies.  Remember the first "Jurassic Park" movie.  Jeff Goldblum played a mathematician in that movie named Ian Malcolm.  At several points in the movie, Malcolm is trying to tell the founders of the park that all kinds of things, mathematically can go wrong.  But he's just brushed aside.

Then the team he's with finds a nest of dinosaur eggs.  That wasn't supposed to happen because the dinosaur's were genetically altered so they can' reproduce.  Malcolm looks at the team members and the founder of the park and said, "Life always finds a way."

That seems to be another truth along side entropy.  Life always finds a way.  When I'd go hiking in Olympic National Park in western Washington State, I'd see these huge, fallen Douglas Fir trees.  Dead for decades.  But growing up along and within that dead trunk were new baby trees.  Within the death of one organism, others found life.

I think that's what Jesus was getting at by saying he is the life.  Yes the world, and us, and the universe is ultimately ruled by entropy.  All things die.  But in Jesus, life finds a way.

The Resurrection is the great reversal of entropy.  Jesus should have remained dead.  But he did not.  Through Jesus, God made life find a way.  The great thing for us, as Paul wrote, "When we die with Jesus, we will be raised with Him."  Because of Jesus, because of the Resurrection, entropy has been negated.  Life, in Jesus, has found a way.

Are you afraid of death?  Afraid of entropy?  Afraid of coming to an end, disintegrating and decaying?  Thank God, through Jesus Christ, and his Resurrection, we don't have to live by that fear, anymore.  As we are in Christ, we are in life.  And it is a vital, vigorous, robust, entropy-busting life that no one can take away from you.

Those are Jesus' three words about peoplemaking at it's best.  If you want to be a person of God, remember those three words:  find and follow the way; immerse yourself in truth of Jesus and live that truth; embrace the resurrected Jesus and bust your fear of how all things end.   Because there is no end to the story through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Monday, March 7, 2016

I AM...The Good Shepherd

I AM...The Good Shepherd
John 10:11-15

Think what our lives would be like if the following statement was the greatest level of commitment we would ever be able to get out of anyone:  "I'll be there for you if I can, but don't count on it."  We would probably go bonkers, wouldn't we, if we could never fully count on anyone to make a promise to us and keep it.  Our lives would be an asylum of uncertainty if none of the people we need to trust most never kept their commitments.

Our deepest relationships are held together by an invisible cord called commitment.  Every important relationship we have ever developed, either with one person or with many people, depends on the strength of that unseen cord.  If we don't dare to make commitments or don't care enough to keep them, we destabilize the relationships that most need to be steady.  Also, we leave the people who need to count on us the most, unsure of where they stand.  One of life's facts is that we can keep our lives together only if we can trust each other to make and keep commitments.

Jesus looked out over the crowds to whom he preached, describing them as sheep who were wandering about in their own chaotic lives, with no one to offer direction, no one to offer leadership, no one to offer guidance, and no one to offer protection.  Those to whom the tasks of direction, leadership, guidance, protection, and caring were entrusted, shirked their commitment.

The spiritual leadership of that day were not so much "hired" as much as they had made personal commitments to God and to the people, that they would shepherd the sheep--they would lead God's people in God's ways.  But they didn't end up doing what they originally committed themselves to do.  The chaos of the people, their aimlessness, their ignorance, their unfaithfulness was not due as much to themselves as much as it was to the dereliction of duty on the part of the religious leaders.

And it wasn't that the religious leaders were inherently bad men; but they were men, nonetheless, who were originally trusted and who over time, took their positions lightly, and then abandoned their posts altogether.  "I will be there for you if I can, but don't count on it."

University of California sociologist, Robert Bellah, and four of his colleagues published an important study about the loss of commitment in American life.  It was called, "Habits of the Heart:  Individualism and Commitment in American Life."

Bellah's group came to the conclusion that most of us don't really believe in commitment anymore.  We believe, instead, in every individual's right to pursue his or her own fulfillment.  And since we believe most in our own right to be satisfied with life, we shy away from commitments that could tie us to people who lack the power to bring us the satisfaction to which we feel we are entitled.

If this information is accurate, then it looks like things have not changed much from Jesus' day.  Jesus was talking to the people about commitment.  He was trying to tell them how far his commitment was willing to go.

There's the story told of a pig and a chicken who were walking past a church one Sunday morning.  The chicken said to the pig, "You know, over the years those people in there have been pretty nice to us.  I think we ought to do something nice for them."
"Good idea," said the pig.  "What do you have in mind?"
"I think we ought to have a big banquet," said the chicken.
"I'm all for that," said the pig.  "but what shall we serve them to eat?"
"Bacon and eggs," said the chicken.
"Not on your life!" said the pig.  "For you, that's just a contribution.  For me, it's a total commitment!"

That's what Jesus was trying to get across to the people.  "I stand ready to be totally committed to your needs," Jesus was saying.  But when you read on a little further, how did the people react?  "Many were saying, 'He has a demon!  He is crazy!  Why do you listen to him?'" (Vs. 20). The people had gone so long without anyone entrusting themselves, without any demonstration of obligation, that they didn't have a notion of what Jesus was trying to say and do.  Have we gone as far as they?

When I read of Bellah's findings, I wonder.  I wonder if it is entirely accurate.  I can answer only for myself, and maybe make some assumptions based on conversations with others.  I know I believe in commitment.  But more than that, I know I need commitment.  Commitment from my friends.  Commitment from my children.  Commitment from my church.

But there is a quandary, and maybe this is what Bellah's findings are pointing to more than anything else.  The quandary is this:  I think most people desire and need commitment.  They want genuinely committed relationships.  But people are not always sure what a commitment asks of them.  Or, they are not sure what they should do when a commitment that they once made, and made sincerely, becomes very painful, maybe impossible to keep.

Most people I know are not human honeybees.  They don't flutter through other people's lives, stopping long enough to suck what they want out of them, and then fly off.  They don't live with their bags packed, constantly moving on, leaving somebody else to pick up the pieces.  But, we all find that the road of "commitment keeping" is rough, and the arguments for calling it quits are sometimes powerful.

So, what is it that makes up this thing we call commitment?  How can we more than just dab our toes in the risky waters of relationships in life?  How do we dare, and dare again, to make and keep, and care for our commitments?  How can we believe in commitment, especially when we get into the hard places that commitment often takes us?  There are many qualities that feed commitment, but I will highlight just a couple.

First, there has to be what has been called the no-matter-what quality.  Even though we expect there to be a lot of consistency and predictability in our relationships, the truth is, we all change.  Our needs change.  Our desires change.  Our feelings change.  Our bodies change.  Our personalities change.

When we make promises to others, we really can't be sure what we will be like at some distant time when we will really be needed.  We can only hope that the people we will become, will keep the commitment that our present selves make.

Circumstances will change, too.  None of us knows what life will be like when the time comes for us to keep the commitments we've made.  Will times be hard?  Will circumstances drive a wedge between us?  Will life be too difficult for us to manage?

The shepherds Jesus spoke of in his parable of the Good Shepherd certainly faced changing circumstances, sometimes daily.  They were as consistent as the sun, punching the time clock, and then settling down on some rock to watch the sheep.  A cushy job.  But no one ever told them about wolves.  Or stormy weather that scattered the sheep.  Or disobedient sheep that just liked to wander away--all the time.

So it is with many people.  But just the same, so it isn't.

Take for example, James Ettison, one of those not-very-profound kinds of people.  He was a salesman, and on the road for most of his work.  A gentle and lovely woman named Alice came into his life and he was sure that she would bring him the fulfillment of his relationship dreams.

They got married, and settled snugly into happiness.  But about two years later, on a cold November night, before the snow had come, Alice's car skidded on a stretch of icy road.  She slid helplessly, head on, full speed, into a car coming from the other direction.

Alice survived.  After tilting toward death for a year, she gave signs of living again.  But she was never the same.  She was paralyzed from the hips down.  Her memory was spotty and selective.  She uttered sounds that James had to learn to translate the way a person learns a new language.

As month's edged into years, the past crept back with fits and starts in Alice's memory, which, in some ways, made life harder for her, because she then became much more aware of her condition and what got her that way.

James quit his traveling job right after the accident, got some work near home, and made a nearly full-time vocation of taking care of Alice.  Nobody ever heard a discouraging word from his corner, and the man who once appeared to be a spiritual lightweight showed he was a world-class keeper of commitment.

Alice died fifteen years after her accident and somebody asked James how he had done it all so patiently when he had gotten a slender portion of everything he had hoped he and Alice would share.  He said he had never thought to ask himself that question.  But when pressed he said it all:  "I just loved her so much, I couldn't give up on her."

Such is the no-matter-what quality of commitment.  It is the unconditional kind of commitment.  No matter how I change.  No matter what happens to you.  No matter what happens to us, or around us.

What a risk!  What a gamble!  Think of what is at stake, when we make such statements.  We stand to gain a lot:  love; maybe even life itself.  But to gain such things we also have to realize what we surrender--because we surrender so much when we make serious commitments to others.  And that is the other quality of commitment:  being willing to surrender.

There are at least three things that we surrender when we commit ourselves to another person, or a group of people.  We surrender our freedom.  We surrender a large part of our individuality.  And we surrender our control.  All in all, that's a lot to surrender.

But that's what Jesus was talking about when he said he was ready to lay down his life for the sheep.  Think of all that he did in his ministry.  We don't have to look too hard and for very long to see that everything he did, every word he uttered had to do with surrender of the self in these three areas.  He gave up all of them, most dramatically on the Cross, so that we might see the way clearly to the kind of life he would have us live for each other.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, how did he end it?  "Go and do likewise."  In washing his disciples feet at the Last Supper, what did he say?  "I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you."

Over and over, time and time again, Jesus demonstrated this quality of commitment that is willing to surrender the self in order to fulfill another's needs.  Jesus said, "I am willing to die for the sheep."  Making commitments is a form of dying of the self for the sake of others.

In terms of our freedom, when we make a commitment, we freely decide that our lives will not flow free, as if we were unattached, from one personal relationship to another.  Our commitment builds an invisible fence around us and those we are committed to, and the only freedom we have is to choose to respect those limits and boundaries.

In terms of our individuality, when we commit ourselves to someone else, we put ourselves at the side of another.  Once committed, I am no longer a separate "I."  The mirror I hold up to myself no longer reflects a solitary figure.  You no longer just take selfies; you take “usies.”  What I see there in the mirror is me, and my family, and this congregation, and other friends in distant places.  I am plural.  Who am I?  I am who I am in relationship with all those in my mirror; they are part of my self-definition.

In terms of our control, when we commit ourselves to another, we give up a segment of our own life.  We let another, or others, stake a claim on our self.  The person to whom we make a commitment can call us to task with two simple words:  "You promised."  We give up our control, our right to say, "I don't care."  Therefore, somebody else shares control with me, over my life.

All in all, that's a lot to surrender for the sake of commitment.  It is what Jesus said he was willing to do for the people he loved.  It is what he is calling us to do for each other--for those whom we love.  And remember, this is all done in the sure knowledge that we are going to change.  Yet we make our commitments.  High risk, with a lot at stake.

Which brings us to our final and most critical point.  The only way to live with the high risk of commitment is through trust.  When Jesus said he was willing to lay down his life for us, we have to trust him that that is exactly what he means.  When we make a commitment to another person, we have to trust them to keep that commitment.  And they are trusting us to, likewise. keep our commitment to them.

We have to trust others to whom we are committed to not abuse our commitment, not to scorn it, not to deflate it.  And they are trusting us not to do the same in our commitment to them.  We are trusting that neither we or them will turn away when we need the other to uphold their commitment and love.

Trust is our only guarantee.  And such trust is the only thing that offers us the peculiar kind of hope that dares us to take the high risk of personal commitment.  Without trust, nobody in his or her right mind would ever make a serious commitment to another person.

Or a Savior.  I can't remember if it's on the way to Wichita, or on the way to Hutchinson, there's a sign with a picture of a pasty white Jesus.  Beside the picture it says, "Jesus...I trust in you."  Though I don't like the picture, I like the saying.  When Jesus says he's the Good Shepherd, and he's willing to lay his life down for us, and that he will take care of us all because he knows each of us, can we trust that?  Can we trust him?  Can we trust that commitment he makes to us?

And can Jesus trust our commitment to him?