You Will Soon Be Set Free (part 4)

"You Will Soon Be Set Free" (part 4)

Luke 21:28a

You know what I've heard ever since 9th grade?  That's when I grew from 5'5" to 6'5".  What do you think I've heard?  "Stand up straight."  

After growing another 4 inches in high school, then I really heard it.  "Don't stoop!"  "Be proud of your height"!  I would reply something like, "I can't help but stoop and bend over--I have to talk to all you short people."

Former basketball great Wilt Chamberlain was proud of his height--even arrogant about it.  One time, when he was traveling with the 76'ers, he was on an elevator at the hotel.  A lady looked up at him and said, "How's the weather up there, Wilt?"  He looked down on her, spit on her, and said, "It's raining."  Evidently he had heard enough of that weather line.

It's hard to remember to stand up straight.  Sometimes I think I am.  Then I see a picture of me, and my shoulders are rounded, my neck is bent down, and I'm not straight.

When I was in seminary, some old guy, a retired pastor was visiting the seminary.  He was very tall.  He struck up a conversation with me and one of the first things he said was, "Stand up straight."  He told me I should stick my thumbs out away from my body--that was a trick he used to stand up straight.  I was in my early twenties.  I didn't need to be told by some old geezer how to keep my thumbs out and stand up straight. Do you know what that looks like—how dweebish it is—walking around with your thumbs out!?  Now I'm an old geezer and I still don't stand straight.  And I never kept my thumbs out, either.

II

Posture is important, though.  Not just standing straight.  But what our posture, our body language, is communicating to others.

There’s a lot of posturing going on in our world these days.  It doesn’t matter if it's a basketball player dunking on his defenders head then strutting back down the court; or, Russia and Turkey putting troops on each other’s boarders; or one of the Republican candidates at the latest debate trying to appear tough and commanding.

We all do a bit of posturing, don’t we—trying to convey a false impression.  Posing is another word for it.  Posing and posturing.  Trying to impress or mislead others about who we are simply through our posture.

We do that because we all realize how our posture conveys what we are feeling, or how we are feeling about ourselves, about others, or our situation in life.  If you pay attention to posture and body language you can discern a lot about other people.  The reason you need to pay attention to body language and posture is that we communicate more with our bodies than with our words.  The truth is, our bodies never lie even when our words are.

III

I have been directing your attention, this Advent, to Jesus’ Second Coming as contrasted to his First Coming.  I talked two weeks ago about the state of the world that Jesus first came into, and the state of the world when he will come again.

At his Second Coming, Jesus says our posture should change.  When Jesus comes again we should straighten up, stand up, lift up our heads, rise to our feet.  At the first coming, people’s posture was different.  Then, people kneeled before the Savior Child.  Before this awesome visage of humble power, God in a baby, people could do no other than fall to a kneeling posture.

But when Jesus comes again, it is time to get up.  It’s time to get on our feet, straighten up, and lift our faces.

If people are to rise and straighten up when Jesus comes again, what does that tell us about people’s posture before that Second Coming?  What truth were people’s bodies and posture conveying before Jesus comes again?

First, they are bent over.  Maybe bent over in defeat.  Dani Canaan put up a video on her Facebook site this week.  It was the last point of the volleyball match between #1 USC and 9th ranked KU.  That last point seemed to go on forever.  KU won the point and won the match.  The difference in posture between the two teams was amazing.  The USC team had stunned, blank looks on their faces, with shoulders rolled in.  Just standing still.  Unable even to talk.  They were bent over by defeat.  That’s how people look before Jesus will come back—bent over in defeat.  Like they were fighting to keep their place in the world and didn’t make it.  Feeling like losers.

Imagine a world of people feeling like losers.  How many millions of people are feeling bent over.  Defeated by life’s harsher circumstances.  Hunger.  Grief.  Oppression.  Homelessness.  Refugees.  Poverty.  Addictions.  Jobless.  Chronic or terminal illness.  Victims of terrorists.  All bent over and defeated.

Secondly, when Christ comes again, if people are to lift their heads, they must have been going through life with heads down.  Facing the ground.  Maybe eyes closed.  Feeling depressed.  Not looking where they were going, especially.  Just shuffling along.  Putting one foot in front of the other.  No sense of mission or purpose in life.  Watching their round-toed shoes slowly stepping forward, right, shuffle, left, shuffle, right, shuffle, left, shuffle.

When you are trying to assess someone’s body language while having a conversation, particularly when the other person won’t look you in the eyes, how are you reading that?  Especially if they always look down and never look up.  What are they saying about how they feel about themselves?  Think about a world of people who feel so worthless about themselves, so aimless, so purposeless, they can’t and won’t lift their faces to look at other people in the eye, or look around and see the world.

Imagine the burden it is to carry the feeling that you are not important to anyone.  That no one cares.  The feeling of being alone.  That if you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will.  And you’re not even sure if you are up to the task of looking after yourself.  Those kinds of feelings keep you looking down, neck bent with the weight of self-resignation or despair.  Even humiliation.

IV

Combine those two postures into one body.  (Do this.) Bent over.  Shoulders hunched and rolled inwards.  Neck bent down.  Face parallel to the ground.  It’s as if their body is boxed in—bent and compressed to fit the space of the box which is called misery.  They are in the box and unable to get out, or even want to get out.  Unable to free themselves, they are stuck in the cramped box of depression and burden and exhaustion and defeat.  Nothing to be proud about.  No one proud of them.

One of the words in the Bible for sin literally means to be boxed in.  To be compressed, to be squeezed down upon, and totally constricted.

That’s how the world of people is.  People may not look like that.  We are good at pretending.  Look around at people, and pay attention to their bodies; you will see the signs of the betrayal of their seemingly happy words—shoulders slightly rounded, faces down more than looking up, the loss of a lightness to their step.  Pay attention; you will see it.  God does.  And that’s why Christ must come again, to straighten people up, to lift up their faces once and for all.

V

When Christ will come, all people will finally be able to raise up.  They will become unbent.  The poet, Ranier Maria Rilke, in one of his poems, wrote:

I want to unfold

I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,

because where I am folded,

there I am a lie…

I like those lines because they describe for me what Christ will do when he comes.  Not just in the Second Coming, but also when Jesus comes to us at all times.  Jesus will “unfold” us.  (Do this.) Jesus will first get us out of the cramped space we have been folded into—that we most likely have folded ourselves into—and release us from those boxes.  And then Jesus will begin the slow and amazing process of unfolding us so we can stand up straight again.  So we can lift our faces again and look him in the eyes, face-to-face, and never hang our head again.

Because, as the poet Rilke has in his poem, when we are folded up human beings, we are “a lie.”  That is, we aren’t who we are.  We aren’t who we can and should be in the name of Jesus.  Our lives are no where near where they should be when we are folded up.  We are living a lie.

Folded up, we have fallen for the lie that this is all we can amount to.

We have fallen for the lie that there is no mission in life to which we can give ourselves to.

We have fallen for the lie that we can be nothing great, nor do great things as God’s human beings.

We have fallen for the lie that Jesus can do nothing with us now that we have allowed ourselves to be folded and boxed.

That is all a lie.

Jesus doesn’t want us to live that lie.  That lie must be broken for all human beings who have been bent over, face down, and folded up.  That is why Jesus has come and will come again.  Now that Jesus has come, and when Jesus comes again, and however many more times Jesus must come until we get it, he is extending us his hand.  Once we touch that hand we feel a new backbone forming.  We are given a new set of eyes that aren’t afraid to look into another’s eyes.  We feel ourselves unfolding, straightening up, face up, standing tall, poised, and ready to live the Jesus life.  Brave.  Poised.  Strong.  Confident.  Elated, even.

Stand up straight.  Raise your heads.  Jesus is coming.

You Will Soon Be Set Free. (Part 3)

"You Will Soon Be Set Free". (Part 3)

Luke 21:27

Writer and musician Spike Milligan has been attributed with the quote, “Everybody has to be somewhere.”  It makes sense, does it not?  You can’t say, “I’m in the middle of nowhere,” because nowhere doesn’t exist.

Do you know what the word, “utopia” literally means?  It is the combination of two Greek words.  “Eu” means “no.”  “Topos” means “place.”  So utopia literally means “no place.”  A utopia doesn’t exist.  It is a no place.

Which means that Jesus was born in a utopia.  The story of his birth in Luke says there was “no place” for Mary to have her baby.  No place.

Oh, there was a place.  As I started this message, everyone has to be somewhere.  Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem.  That’s definitely a place.  It was a small town.  Still is.  But it was even smaller back then.  Evidently only one inn.  The story tells us there was “no place in the inn,” not, “no place in an inn.”

No place.  No tucked away corner.  No scrap of a place on the floor some where.  No storeroom.  No back hallway.  No place.

What’s even sadder is, this is not just about an inn with no place.  Remember why Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem.  There was a census going on.  The Roman government wanted to make sure it was getting all the taxes they thought they deserved.  In order to be counted and therefore appropriately taxed by the occupational army and provisional Roman government, a person had to go back to their family home of origin.

What that means is that, for Joseph and Mary, all their extended family would be in Bethlehem as well.  Aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, nieces and nephews.  All of Joseph and Mary’s family would be there.  Which begs the question:  Why did Joseph and Mary have to find no place in an inn?  Why didn’t a second or third or first cousin give a pregnant relative a place?  Why was there no welcome given to Joseph and Mary so that they could have a place where their baby could be born?

How could the famous middle eastern ethic of hospitality break down, so that even a pregnant relative could find “no place?”  Even among the middle eastern bedouins, if a stranger wandered into their camp, and the bedouin took that stranger into their tent out of hospitality, the bedouin was bound to protect their guest with their life.  That was the unwritten rule of hospitality.  To offer no hospitality, which literally means to take a stranger in and give them a place, give them protection, to offer no hospitality was a huge insult.  Mary and Joseph, and eventually a baby, were given “no place.”

To treat someone as such is to make them invisible.  To give them “no place” is to make them invisible.  So when Jesus came into the world, offered no hospitality, no room, no home, no extended family gathered round, no place, it was as if he were invisible to the rest of that place.  Even, as we shall see, when the shepherds came, all they found was Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus.  No one else.  At a “no place” stable cave.  Mostly invisible to the rest of that little town, and entirely invisible to the rest of the world.

II

But, when Jesus comes again, he will come on the clouds.

There are two reasons Jesus will come on the clouds.  First, a cloud was symbolic for the presence of God.  Remember during the Exodus, when the Hebrew slaves were taken out of Egypt by Moses?  As they crossed the wilderness a pillar of cloud led them in the right direction during the day time—the cloud of God’s presence.

When Moses went up on the mountain to receive the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them, a cloud descended upon the mountain—the cloud of the presence of God.

When Jesus was transfigured and met with Moses and Elijah, they were enveloped in a cloud—the cloud of the presence God.  When Jesus ascended into heaven after the Resurrection, he did so on a cloud—the cloud of the presence of God.

That Jesus, in his Second Coming will come on the clouds means that he will come in and with the full presence of God.

And the second reason Jesus will come again on the clouds is, unlike the first coming in the stable, he will be totally visible to the whole world.  John the Divine tells us in the book of Revelation,

Riding the clouds, he’ll be seen by every eye…

People from all nations and all times.  (Revelation 1:7)

No longer invisible, where there is “no place” for him, Jesus will come again and there will be no place that won’t see him this time.  The angels told the shepherds that the Savior will be for all people.  But not all people saw.  Not all people believed.  In the Second Coming, all will see, and all will be challenged to believe because of what they will see.

III

In the first coming, at the birth of Jesus, the Savior had a manger for a bed.  A feed trough.  Remember how you were with your first child.  So over-protective.  Not letting just anyone hold your baby.  Trying to protect them from germs.  Thinking that you could provide a protective barrier for your new baby against the grit and grime of the world.

Imagine Mary and Joseph holding the new born baby Jesus, looking for someplace to lay him down for a nap.  And you spy the manger.  The feeding trough.  The place where coarse food—the entire corn plant and other silage—was placed for the horses and cattle.  The place where those animals would chew over and slobber into.  Years of build up of animal drool and bits of leftover stalks and leaves.  That’s the only place to lay their baby—the Savior of the world.

Not a very glorious place, by a long shot.  No velvet blankets to wrap the babe in.  Only swaddling cloths, a thin layer of wrap to protect your newborn from the detritus of a feeding trough.  Not regal at all.  No one would see anything of dignity in a baby wrapped in stripped pieces of cloth, and sleeping in a manger.  Could this really be the Savior of the world?

But, when Jesus comes again, he will come with “great glory.”  Instead of a dingy, dark and dank cattle cave, Jesus will come again in eye shielding brightness and brilliance.  Instead of the indignity of a no place, Jesus will come again with overpowering majesty.  Instead of having to be laid in a cattle crib on top of chewed up bits and orts, Jesus will come again with the magnificence as if he were a King upon a resplendent throne.  Instead of appearing as a nobody in a no place, Jesus will come again, preeminent above all and over all.

C.S. Lewis wrote in his sermon, “The Weight of Glory,”

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship…There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” 

What he’s saying is that all of us are being fitted for heaven.  Some day we will have heavenly bodies, that, if we saw them now, we would be in awe.  Multiply that by the thousands in relation to Jesus.  In the first coming, in the first Advent, Jesus and his surroundings seemed dull and uninteresting.  Jesus was just an ordinary baby in a less than ordinary cattle cave sleeping in a stall.

But in the Second Coming, the Second Advent, Jesus will be seen in all his glory.  No mere mortal, but the glorious, magnificent and majestic Savior and Son of God, so bright we will be unable to look upon him.  In the first coming people looked at Jesus and turned away, not really seeing anything they thought worth looking at.  In the Second Coming no one will be able to look away from him.

IV

In the first coming, Jesus seemed to be totally powerless.  Certainly, babies are powerless.  They are completely dependent on their parents for everything.  There is nothing they can do for themselves other than cry hoping someone will pay attention to them.

Jesus was born, not to a wealthy family, but a peasant couple, who themselves had no personal power.  Repeatedly they were turned away.  As I’ve mentioned, they were people who had no place, and thus no power.

Joseph and Mary were doormats, and that made Jesus a doormat.  According to Bill Farmer's newspaper column, J. Upton Dickson was a fun-loving fellow who said he was writing a book entitled Cower Power. He also founded a group of submissive people. It was called DOORMATS. That stands for “Dependent Organization of Really Meek And Timid Souls”.  They hope people like the name of their group…unless there are any objections? Their motto is: “The meek shall inherit the earth”—if that's okay with everybody.  Their symbol is the yellow traffic light.

That’s how Jesus came into the world—a powerless doormat.  But when Jesus comes again, it will be with power.  This word power in Greek is the word dunamis—the same word we get the word dynamite from.  Explosive power.  Earth Crushing power.

It’s also the kind of power that is inherent in a thing or person.  Most people gain power because it is given to them or they earn it.  Prince Charles is next in line to be King of England, not because he is an inherently kingly person, but simply because of the family he was born into.  His power has been conferred upon him.

But the power Jesus has when he comes again will be a power that resides in himself just by virtue of his nature—his nature as God.  God may be the only being in the universe that has not had power conferred upon him, but is power inherent.  Jesus, God in the flesh, will come again into the world with that same natural power.

The irony is that in the first Advent, Jesus had that same power within himself, but people didn’t see it.  Nor did Jesus totally exercise it—a miracle here or there.  For the most part, as Isaiah the prophet described the coming Savior, centuries before the first Advent: 

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  (Isaiah 53:3)

Jesus was treated as if he had no power, displaying his ultimate powerlessness by being crucified.

But in the second coming, that irony will be erased.  The one people considered powerless will be displayed with explosive and mighty power.  And then we will know.

The same Savior, coming two different times, in two entirely different ways, but with the same intention:  to set the people of this world free.

You Will Soon Be Set Free (part 2)

"You Will Soon Be Set Free"  (part 2)

Luke 21:25-26

What’s going to happen in the future?

Ten years ago, as you looked into the future, is today what you saw?  Is the person you are now the person you envisioned you would be from back then?  Is the world we live in now the world you envisioned 10 years ago?  What about 25 years ago?  50 years ago?

What’s going to happen this afternoon?  Tomorrow?  I try to keep a thorough calendar of future days.  I look at my calendar and it tells me what appointments and events will be coming up.  I look forward with anticipation to some of those events on my calendar.  Not so much anticipation with others.  But at least I know.  Each item on each day of my calendar is going to happen, right?

My calendar gives me a sense that the future is predictable.  Probably about 95% of the time, what I have on my calendar happens.  But there are times when things I didn’t expect to happen, happens.  Or things I expected to happen get canceled.  I get surprises.  Some times they aren’t good surprises.  I’m sure Betsy and Larry Koontz weren’t happy about coming home this week, surprised to see a huge branch crashed through their roof and into their bedroom.  Couldn't have seen that one coming, or had it on the calendar.  Most of the time events are just what they are.

We like to have a sense of control over our future.  We want that predictability.  Whenever we speak a sentence that begins with the words, “I will…” it has to do with what we want to happen in our future.

The futurist Robert Prehoda once wrote:

Unless you believe in a totally fixed and immutable time-stream (in which case it doesn’t matter what you do, everything’s frozen in cement already) then the future must be a series of events that have not yet happened, and therefore can be altered, changed, diverted, moved, shaped by myriad of individual decisions.  There is no one certain future; there are countless possible futures, with every moment bringing new opportunities to hand.

But, look back through this statement by Jesus and see how many times the word “will” comes up:

“Strange things will happen…”

“The nations on earth will be afraid…”

“People will be so frightened…”

“Every power in the sky will be shaken.”

“…the Son of Man will be seen, coming in a cloud…”

“You will soon be set free.”

Six times.

Let’s look at that word, “will” and what it infers.  Because from what Jesus said, it doesn't appear there are a lot of options.  If something “will” happen it means whatever is to happen is expected.  Not only expected—it’s supposed to happen.  There is no shade of doubt.  There is certainty.  There aren’t “countless possible futures,” as Prehoda wrote.  There is only one.

Also, behind these “will” statements of Jesus is a sense of determination.  Determined in two meanings of the word.  First, determined as in predestined.  If something will happen, and there is certainty about it happening, it means it is fated, or determined and fixed that it will happen.  And nothing will be able to derail that fate.  If it will happen, it has been set.

Determination also has the sense of volition behind it.  If I make an “I will” statement it means I am being deliberate in my choices and actions.  I am exercising my own purposes.  I am determined.  “I will make this happen.”

Coupled with that is fact that in order to say you will make such-and-such happen, you must have the power to make it happen.  I can’t say something like, “I will make Donald Trump close his mouth and drop out of the presidential election.”  I could show all the determination I want about that statement, but I just don’t have the power to pull it off.  So if you say you will do something, you better have the power to make it happen.

One other part of this statement Jesus makes about all the things that will happen has to do with design.  Some things will happen simply because that is the way they are designed.  That’s the feeling we get when we read Jesus’ six “will” statements—that this is the way the future is designed, and that future can’t do other than how it has been designed to play out.  Thus we get back to fate or determinism.  We may not like the way certain things about life are designed, but that’s tough.  There are some things about the design we don’t get to have a say in.

The ultimate destination of our future, or the future of the world, is one of those.  At least according to this statement of Jesus.

The other unsettling part of these six “will” statements is that they are open-ended.  We can be sure that they will happen.  We just don’t know when.  Most of our “I will” statements that we make we try to be close-ended.  “I will buy a different car next week.”  “I will write a book in 2016.”  “I will drink some oolong tea with my lunch today.”

Not so with Jesus’ statements.  The Second Coming, and these events, could start happening this afternoon.  Or 50 years from now.  It’s already been over 2000 years since Jesus made this statement.  So when?  We don’t know.

I was having breakfast with Alan and Rex Thursday morning at the Servateria.  A lady walked up to our booth and started preaching to us.  She said Jesus was going to come back soon because of all those blankety-blank Islamatists and what's happening in Jerusalem.  She said her husband told her to keep her mouth shut and I told her I might agree with him, but that the guys in the next booth over would love to hear what she had to say.  She moved on.

I admit, I was a bit crass.  But I get tired of people who say they know stuff about the Second Coming, when Jesus himself said he didn't know when it was going to happen.  We don't know.

The timing of either the first or second coming of Christ isn't what's important.  What is important is understanding the why of both the first and second coming.  And the why has to do with the kind of world that God is entering through Christ.

Look at how the world is described in these verses about the Second Coming.  Every power in the sky--sun, moon and stars--will shake.  In ancient times people believed the stars to be spiritual powers.  So even the powers in the skies, that had once been unmoving and constant, would suddenly become unstable.

The nations of the earth are living in fear and they won't know what to do about their fear.  Isn't our world currently being held in fear by terrorists, unstable and unruly nations ruled by unstable leaders?  The human-to-human atrocities are mind boggling!  We are bombarded with barbaric images from around our world of human cruelty and craziness.  Which city will be next?  Which innocent person will be next?  If we get used to those images or numbed to these inhuman actions, shame on us.

There is fear of climate change.  Of scarce water supplies.  Of antibiotic resistant bacteria.  And on and on.  The number one reality of our world is fear, and we have no idea what to do about it.

Fear is so bad, says these words of Jesus, that people will faint because of what's happening.  Imagine this prophetic picture portraying life prior to and during Christ's return.  As the events of his Second Coming unfold, a sense of dread, discouragement and perplexity closes down upon the world like the lid of a casket.

In one Peanuts cartoon, Snoopy is lying in his doghouse.  He is thinking to himself, "It's nice to wake up in the morning with a feeling well-being...to know that even though there's snow on the ground and it's a little chilly outside, basically life is good, and that you personally are..."  At that point, Snoopy stopped in mid-sentence and looked up.  Above him, hanging from the eave of the house, is one of the largest icicles he has ever seen.  Not knowing when it might fall on his little doghouse, Snoopy finishes his sentence, "...life is good, and that you are personally DOOMED!"

We have some of those kind of icicles hanging over our lives and over our world at the present time.  The unknowing of when they will fall paralyzes us from action or simple reaction.

As this Peanuts cartoon continues, Snoopy is looking up at the menacing spike of ice poised directly above him and his doghouse.  He's thinking to himself, "It's silly to be trapped in a doghouse by an icicle!"  Looking out straight ahead of him he continues to think, "I think I'll just make a run for it!  Just zoom out of here!"  The next frame shows Snoopy with a look of determination on his face as he talks to himself into making a bold move out of his precarious position:  "I think I'll just leap up and zoom right out!"  Then he looked up at the icicle and settles back down, feeling like a captive to his situation:  "I think I'll just lie here for the rest of my life!"

That's the dread that comes through the picture of the world at the time of Christ's second Advent.  The people of the world are discouraged and have a sense of bewilderment as to what is happening.  There is a certain reality that the people of the world are totally out of control--those who are the victimizers and those who are the victims.  The icicles over our lives and over the people of the world loom too large, and our avenues of escape seem to be all dead ends.  We give up.  We become fatalists.  We just lay down under our growing sense of doom.

On top of that is the image in these verses of the chaotic and untamed seas.  Throughout the Bible, the sea is a symbol for the troubled world.  The Psalmist cried out to God, "All thy breakers and thy waves have rolled over me" (Psalm 42:7).  And in another Psalm, David cried,

"Save me, O God, for the waters have threatened my life.

I have sunk where there is no foothold;

I have come into deep waters,

and a flood overflows me!"  (Psalm 69:1-2)

If anyone has swam in the ocean and felt the waves crash against them, they know what the psalmist is describing.  No matter how firmly you think you are standing, when that wave hits, you are down.  And you may feel the dangerous undertow tugging you down.  It's fun when you are playing with the waves.  It is not fun when they hit when you didn't expect it, or when they hit with such a ferocity that can knock the wind out of you for a time.

This is the picture of human life just prior to Christ's second Advent--wave upon wave of battering experiences, making the people of the world unable to get up before the next wave hits.  Our news is full of such waves.

This chaotic and untamable sea of human events makes us wonder where history is going.  When the rumors and possibilities of the icicle world events loom over us, we have the expectation that the worst is yet to come.  We just know it's all going to come crashing down upon us, so we just lay there, cringing, like Snoopy in the doghouse, overpowered by despair.

Is there any hope for us, for the people of our world?

In the final installment of Snoopy's icy predicament, Charlie Brown and Lucy put a pizza out on the snow.  Charlie Brown says to Lucy, "I'm doing just what the man from the humane society said to do."  Snoopy, laying in his doghouse sniffs the air catching the scent of the pizza.  Then, just as the icicle falls and destroys the doghouse, Snoopy zooms out to eat the pizza.  Charlie Brown and Lucy cheer, "SAVED BY A PIZZA!"  Snoopy thinks to himself, "Good Grief!"

Humanity won't be saved by pizza.  But salvation is on the way.

You Will Soon Be Free

"You Will Soon Be Free"

Luke 21:25-28

What’s going to happen in the future?

Ten years ago, as you looked into the future, is today what you saw?  Is the person you are now the person you envisioned back then?  What about 25 years ago?  50 years ago?

What’s going to happen this afternoon?  Tomorrow?  I try to keep a thorough calendar of future days.  I look at my calendar and it tells me what appointments and events will be coming up.  I look forward with anticipation to some of those events on my calendar.  Not so much anticipation with others.  But at least I know.  Each item on each day of my calendar is going to happen, right?

My calendar gives me a sense that the future is predictable.  Probably about 95% of the time, what I have on my calendar happens.  But there are times when things I didn’t expect to happen, happens.  Or things I expected to happen get canceled.  I get surprises.  Some times they aren’t good surprises.

We like to have a sense of control over our future.  We want that predictability.  Whenever we speak a sentence that begins with the words, “I will…” it has to do with what we want to happen in our future.  Earlier this week, as a number of you invited me to spend Thanksgiving with you and your families, I replied, “I will be going to Wichita for a couple of days to spend Thanksgiving with my son, his wife and her family.”  But looking at the weather I didn’t know if I would be able to say, “I will be coming home on Friday.”  If the weather said, “I will be dumping an inch of ice all over the land,” then the weather’s “I will,” just might have precedence over my, “I will.”

Whenever we start a sentence with, “I will…” it means we haven’t done it yet, or experienced it yet.  It’s something that will happen in the future.  But because we say it, we assume it will happen.  It means I have made a choice and it’s my intention to make that choice happen.

I’ve always thought that life is about choices.  And the choices are about all those, “I will…” statements we make.  But the more I thought about it this week, I wondered more and more if my “I will…” statements really have my personal power in them.

Here’s what I mean by that.  I am not the only person who is saying, “I will… do such and such.”  Everyone else is making their own, “I will…” statements.  Some of those are bound to encroach into my own “I will…” statements.  Everyone is trying to build their own future with their own “I will…” statements at the same time.  What happens when some of those future plans collide?

Certainly you and your spouse have had those kinds of conversations.  How do you handle it when your two separate “I will…” statements collide or are incompatible?  What happens when what you will be doing, even for just the next hour or the rest of the day doesn’t quite fit with what your spouse or your kids envision what they will be doing?

Or what if the two clashing “I will…” statements go something like this:  You say, “I will be going to the France-Germany soccer match tonight and I will sing and chant my voice hoarse for the French team.”  That sounds like a fun and memorable, “I will…” statement about your future.

But unbeknownst to you, there is another group of young men who are arming themselves with automatic rifles and stating, “I will go to the France-Germany soccer game and I will shoot to kill as many spectators as I can in the name of my religion.”  You who were going to the soccer game as a spectator had no idea there was another whose “I will…” statement was going to clash with yours in such a deadly way.

Thankfully, not all “I will…” statements clash in such a hideous and ugly way.

But I think we don’t stop and realize how most our choices, most of our “I will…” statements end up being negotiations, because we don’t consider how our choice will impact others, and other’s choices will impact ours.

Which brings me to one of the points in this message, Our futures are always negotiable.  Our choices are all negotiable with the others who are also making choices, and “I will…” statements, that may not mesh well with our own.

So maybe, life isn’t about choices, or the sum total of all the choices we make.  Maybe life is more about the sum of all of our negotiations that flow out of our choices and our “I will…” statements.  Think about it.  There is a huge invisible web out there that connects all of us through those negotiations that are woven by every one of our “I will…” statements.

The futurist Robert Prehoda once wrote:

Unless you believe in a totally fixed and immutable time-stream (in which case it doesn’t matter what you do, everything’s frozen in cement already) then the future must be a series of events that have not yet happened, and therefore can be altered, changed, diverted, moved, shaped by myriad of individual decisions.  There is no one certain future; there are countless possible futures, with every moment bringing new opportunities to hand.

That’s the way life works:  we make choices based on our, “I will…” statements, and we negotiate those choices within the web of relationships that we hold dear.  Then we move into our future, molded by those negotiations.

Except in one instance.  There is one future that is not negotiated.  When God says, “I will…” our only response is to like or not.  But even if we don’t like it, we don’t get to negotiate with God.  Only a couple of times did God allow negotiation according to the Bible:  when Abraham negotiated with God about any righteous people who might be in Sodom and Gomorrah; and when the people of Ninevah negotiated with God through their repentance, and God changed from the “I will destroy Ninevah in 40 days” statement.

Here, in Luke, we have one of those “I will” statements.  It is by this statement that we find out there are times in the history of the world that all our “I will” statements will be suspended; another’s “I will…” statement will take absolute precedence and there is no negotiation.

Look back through this statement by Jesus and see how many times the word “will” comes up:

“Strange things will happen…”

“The nations on earth will be afraid…”

“People will be so frightened…”

“Every power in the sky will be shaken.”

“…the Son of Man will be seen, coming in a cloud…”

“You will soon be set free.”

Six times.

Let’s look at that word, “will” and what it infers.  If something “will” happen it means whatever is to happen is expected.  Not only expected—it’s supposed to happen.  There is no shade of doubt.  There is certainty.

Also, behind an “I will…” statement is a sense of determination.  Determined in two meanings of the word.  First, determined as in predestined.  If something will happen, and there is certainty about it happening, it means it is fated, or determined that it will happen.  And nothing will be able to derail that fate.  If it will happen, it has been set.

Determination also has the sense of volition behind it.  If I make an “I will” statement it means I am being deliberate in my choices and actions.  I am exercising my own purposes.  I am determined.  “I will make this happen.”

Coupled with that is fact that in order to say you will make such-and-such happen, you must have the power to make it happen.  I can’t say something like, “I will make Donald Trump drop out of the presidential election.”  I could show all the determination I want about that statement, but I just don’t have the power to pull it off.  So if you say you will do something, you better have the power to make it happen.

One other part of this statement Jesus makes about all the things that will happen has to do with design.  Some things will happen simply because that is the way they are designed.  That’s the feeling we get when we read Jesus’ six “will” statements—that this is the way the future is designed, and that future can’t do other than how it has been designed to play out.  Thus we get back to fate or determinism.  We may not like the way certain things about life are designed, but that’s tough.  There are some things about the design we don’t get to have a say in.

The ultimate destination of our future, or the future of the world, is one of those.  At least according to this statement of Jesus.

The other dissettling part of these six will statements is that they are open-ended.  We can be sure that they will happen.  We just don’t know when.  Most of our “I will” statements that we make we try to be close-ended.  “I will buy a different car next week.”  “I will write a book in the month of November.”  “I will drink some oolong tea with my lunch today.”

Not so with Jesus’ statements.  The Second Coming, and these events, could start happening this afternoon.  Or 50 years from now.  It’s already been over 2000 years since Jesus made this statement.  So when?  We don’t know.

There were “will” statements made about the first coming of the Savior for thousands of years.  And then, as Luke states in the Nativity story, “Suddenly there were angels in the sky singing…”  The Savior was here.  “Suddenly.”

In the coming weeks of Advent I will look at what has happened with the first coming of the Savior, and compare that with what will happen when the Savior comes again.  “I will” do that.  Unless the Lord breaks in and the sea starts roaring and the stars start shaking out of the sky.  My “I will” must bow to Christ’s.

The Two Lingering Scents

"The Two Lingering Scents"

Mark 14:3-6

Believe it or not, there are people who devote their entire lives to studying stinky, smelly things. Take Dr. George Preti, for example.

Preti has been studying odors for just under 40 years, primarily at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.  Once, he accidentally knocked over a flask filled with concentrated armpit extract, which shattered on the floor of his lab and splattered all over. He cleaned the mess and put his shoes in a plastic bag, thinking he had contained the odor.

“But it’s like when you work in a restaurant where they’re cooking something really pungent,” Preti said. “After you’ve been there for awhile, you don’t smell the odor anymore.”

Preti took the train home, getting more than a few dirty looks from his fellow commuters, and was picked up at the station by his wife. “As soon as I got in the car, my wife said, ‘You smell like a street person!’ She was just overwhelmed with the odor, and I couldn’t smell anything,” he says. Preti later calculated that he had spilled the equivalent of “about 600,000 people’s armpits” onto his sneakers and pants.  “I threw the shoes and pants out,” he said. “There’s no way I could’ve neutralized the smell.”

Smells and odors can be overpowering.  In fact, the sense of smell is, of the five senses, the one most linked to memory.  We remember the experiences of smells much more easily than things we see, touch, taste or hear.  Especially if it’s the smell of 600,000 armpits.

On the other end of extreme odors from armpits, would be nard.  Nard is the extract from a Spikenard plant grown in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal, China, and India.   The underground stems of the flower are crushed and distilled into an intensely aromatically pleasing amber-colored essential oil.  Nard oil is used as a perfume, an incense, a sedative, and an herbal medicine said to fight insomnia, birth difficulties, and other minor ailments.  When the oil is used as a perfume, it is usually mixed with some kind of ointment.

When the nard oil is mixed with an ointment to make a perfume, a small jar of the ointment—back in the time of Jesus—would cost a person’s entire annual income.  Imagine spending your annual income on a small jar of perfume.  I wonder how much the concentrated extract of 600,000 armpits cost Dr. Preti when he accidentally spilled it.

There are so many questions surrounding this story of the woman and her nard ointment.  Such as, Who was she?  We aren’t told her name or given any hint about her identity.  She could have been a prostitute, since prostitutes would often carry vials of perfume around their neck on a string.  If that’s who this woman was, it might explain some of the outrage of the guests.

It would also be telling concerning spending a years wages of a prostitute to buy the nard and then spill it all out on Jesus’ head.  Jesus told the guests the woman had done “something wonderful.”  Maybe Jesus wasn't talking about how she poured the ointment on his head.  Maybe she turned her life around from the “world’s oldest profession” and was making something new with her life.  Maybe hearing the gospel of God’s love from Jesus, she came to a place of significant change where she totally reordered her life.  Out of gratitude to Jesus, she symbolically poured out the proceeds of her past life upon Jesus so she could become someone new.

Isn’t that what Jesus is all about?  Having our past human failings poured upon him so they become his to carry and not ours anymore?  So that we can be free of those failings, free of our past.  Even when those pasts have reaped for us what we thought were valuable rewards.  Which is why we continue to hold on to them.  Only by pouring out all that upon Jesus’ head, all the wages of our failings, all that bottled up stuff, will it be reckoned to us as “something wonderful” by the Lord.

Others identify this mysterious woman as Mary, Lazarus and Martha’s sister.  They were close personal friends of Jesus.  Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  You will remember that when Jesus told Martha to have her brother’s tomb opened she replied there would be an awful stench.  It would have been an interesting connection to this story of the woman and her nard—if it was sister Mary.

In the other notable story, Jesus visited the home of Mary and Martha.  Martha was in the kitchen banging pots and pans around, preparing a meal, while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet in adoration and attention.  Martha, indignant, came out from the kitchen and demanded Jesus tell Mary to get in the kitchen and help.  Jesus’ reply to Martha:  “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing.  One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it…” (Luke 10:41)

If this mystery woman is indeed Mary, Martha’s sister, then she continues to choose the essential thing:  complete devotion to Jesus.  In the first instance, it was her sister Martha who misunderstood her sister’s devotion.  Martha thought duty should trump all other activity.  Including devotion to Jesus.  In this second instance it is those around the table who misunderstand Mary’s devotion, thinking duty to the poor is more important than any other activity.  Including devotion to Jesus.

Each time, if this is indeed Mary, her actions are misrepresented.  But Jesus comes to her rescue—both with Martha and with those sitting around the table.  The word that describes the criticism of the woman by those around the table literally means, “snort with anger.”  It’s a funny picture of a bunch of men snorting their disdain of the woman like a sty full of pigs.  But Jesus commends her for her courageous devotion.  Mary keeps choosing the “good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

The other mystery people are those sitting at the table with Jesus.  Is it the disciples?  Is it some other Jewish religious leaders?  We don’t know.  The only thing we know about them is that they saw the woman’s actions as a “waste.”  What does that tell us?  What does that tell us about what these mysterious guests thought about Jesus?  What does that tell us about what these men thought of this woman?  What does it tell us about what they thought of this woman’s actions?  “Why was this waste of the ointment made?” they snorted.

In answer to the first question, the guests statement tells us they didn’t think Jesus was worth it.  That Jesus isn’t worth spilling out one of the most expensive perfumes in the known world.  That Jesus wasn’t worth being honored in that way.  That Jesus wasn’t worthy of such a lavish outpouring of devotion.

We don't know much about the host of this gathering.  We know his name is Simon.  We know Simon was a leper.  Was--past tense.  If Simon were still a leper, he wouldn't be in his home.  He would be in a colony of other lepers.  The fact that he was a leper and is no longer means he had been healed.  Which didn't happen.  Ever.

Unless Simon had been healed.  By Jesus.  And maybe that's why Jesus was at Simon's home.  Out of gratitude for being healed, Simon invited Jesus to his home for a celebration of that healing, and showing gratitude for Jesus.

So, what is startling is the snorting and comments by the men gathered--including Simon the healed leper host--that Jesus isn't worth the waste of the poured out nard ointment.  If we are right here in assuming Simon was healed from a death sentence disease, wouldn't you think he'd think Jesus was worth it!?  Evidently not.

With the same snorts the men must not have thought much about the woman either.  This stupid woman evidently had no concept of the value of the perfume she just poured out to the last drop on Jesus' head.  What was she thinking!?  If she was going to get rid of the nard ointment, she could have at least sold it for a boatload of money and use that for the poor!  Why waste it in such a stupid action by a stupid woman by pouring it on Jesus?  Snort, snort, snort.

But Jesus has to reframe their snorting for them so they can see what's really happening:  "Let her alone.  Why are you giving her a hard time?  She has just done something wonderfully significant for me."  Notice Jesus didn't reprimand the other guests for their evaluation that he, Jesus, wasn't worth the sacrificial waste of the perfume.  He wasn't worried about what they thought of him.  But he was concerned about their snorting disdain of the woman who poured out the ointment of nard.

It made me think of Jesus' parable of the workers in the vineyard.  The workers who worked only for an hour got paid the same amount as those who worked all day in the heat of the sun.  The workers who worked longer snorted at the vineyard owner for paying everyone the same.  The vineyard owner's response:  "Do you give me the evil eye because of my generosity?" (Matthew 20:15)

Wouldn't the mystery woman be able to say the same thing to these judgmental and snorting men around the table?  Wouldn't she be on the same ground as Jesus to ask, "Are you judging me because I choose to show my generous devotion by pouring this lotion upon Jesus?  Is it not mine to do with what I want?"

I don't know if the Gospel writer Mark intended this or not, but this story of the unknown woman showing her fragrant devotion to Jesus, is sandwiched between the stench-filled stories of the Jewish religious leaders plotting to kill Jesus, and then the beginnings of Judas' betrayal of Jesus.  What we have is this rose of a woman showing scent-ual devotion to Jesus, surrounded by the thorns of plotting, jealous, and murderous leaders, and the back-stabbing of one of his own disciples.

That is the mix of our world--beautiful, sacrificial acts done in the midst of horrific human atrocities.  As I waded through all the articles about the terrorist attacks in Paris, I was looking for something specifically.  I was looking for just one story of someone stepping up, in a selfless way, to risk stopping the shooting.  Especially in the full house venue of the rock concert or the soccer game.  I was expecting to find at least one story of someone, like the marines on the train a month earlier who took that risk and stopped a bomber.  But I found none.  I found no stories of valor or heroism in the midst of humans being the worst that a human can be.  So often, one act of beauty can overpower even the most sneering acts of ugliness.  I was looking for at least one story of beauty, but found none.

In the home of Simon that day, there were two scents.  The nard lotion, once freed from its alabaster jar would have filled that house with an amazingly beautiful scent.  It would have cascaded out the windows into the homes nearby.

But there was another scent being given off by the men around the table.  From their snorting they would have created an "air" of resentment and bitterness.  And just plain being a small and shriveled human being.

Which scent would be stronger?  Which of the two scents would overpower the other?  The scent emanating and wafting from the beauty and devotion of the mystery woman's act with the nard lotion flowing down Jesus' head?  Or the sneering and snorting stench from the ungracious men around the table?

Which of the two scents do you put off, as you move in and around and through your day?  Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthian church:

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.  And who is adequate for these things?  (2 Corinthians 2:15-16, NASB)

What is the aroma you put off?  The aroma of life?  Or the aroma of death?  You are adequate to do either.  I say, choose the aroma of life and beauty, all wrapped up in your devotion to Christ.  Snnnnniiiiiiffffff!

We All Fall Down

"We All Fall Down"

Mark 13:1-2

Let me show you some pictures.

Here is the Colosseum in Rome.  The Loomis’ were just there this past summer.

As you can see, it’s in a bit of disrepair.  The stadium floor is gone.  As is some of the arch work around the top.  Seats eroding.  It was once a great and terrible place.  Now it is collapsing in on itself.

The next picture is the Temple of Aphrodite in what was Ephesus.

It was once considered one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.  You see the columns.  There used to be 121 of those all around and inside the temple.  A magnificent structure that was built and then rebuilt.  People came from all over the world to see it.  This is all that’s left of it.

Our next picture is a model of Jerusalem.

This is what it would have looked like in the time of the Roman occupation.  The temple complex is there to the left.  The deck upon which the temple was built was all buttressed up by huge stones and filled in.

This picture is all that’s left of the temple mount—the western, or Wailing Wall.

Herod the Great had the temple rebuilt.  The construction started around 1 B.C. and took nearly 46 years to finish.  The Roman emperor Titius destroyed it in 70 A.D.  So it would have been in the process of being built when Jesus was alive.  Hence the disciples statement—“Teacher, look at these beautiful stones and wonderful buildings!”

An average stone used in building the temple was 3 ft. by 4 ft by 15 ft.  Each stone weighed around 28 tons.  The largest stone they found used in the building was 44 ft. by 11 ft. by 17 ft. and weighs approximately 600 tons.  So, yes:  “Look at these beautiful stones…”

Beautiful stones, not just in the Jewish Temple, but the Colosseum, the Temple to Aphrodite, and so many like them.  Once magnificent buildings.  Now rubble.  ISIS is now going around blowing up even the rubble, with human beings strapped to the stones.

A little over two years ago we were talking about what the mission of this congregation is.  We were taking a serious look at our building, wondering if it fit with what we wanted the mission of the church to be.  Does this building serve us in doing the ministry into the future?  If not, what are our options?  Some of you were angry and dumbfounded that we were even entertaining the idea of tearing this building down, or abandoning it, so we could create a different kind of space and a different kind of ministry.

This is just a congregation.  One church among many Christian churches.  Jesus was talking about the central building of a whole religion--the Temple--being torn down.  It became one of the main charges against him at his trial, this statement spoken to the disciples about the destruction of the Temple.

Think of what the Temple represented.  It was the seat of the whole Jewish religion.  At all the religious festival days, it was to Jerusalem and the Temple that people would come by the thousands.  Many of the Psalms are marching Psalms that the people used, reciting, chanting and singing them as they processed up the hill to the Temple.

The Temple was the ultimate symbol of the tradition and history and worship of the Jewish religion.  The building of the first Temple was traced back to King David and his son Solomon.  So the history of a people and their greatest King was imbued in the temple.

The Temple housed the High Priests and Sanhedrin--the ruling Jewish council.  Therefore the Temple was the seat of all rule and authority of the institutional side of the Jewish religion.

But most importantly, the Temple was the closest point of contact between God and the Jewish people.  It was in the Temple, in the inner most part, called the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was housed.  The Ark itself housed the stone tablets of the 10 Commandments given by God to Moses.  It was upon the Ark that God sat when God spoke to the High Priests.  Only the High Priests were allowed in.  Ropes were tied around their waists, in case they died inside the Holy of Holies so they could then be dragged out without another High Priest having to go in and retrieve the body.  The Temple was believed to be God's house upon the earth.

So, it wasn't just the building.  It was all of this that was represented by the building.  The Temple was the heart and soul of the entirety of the Jewish religion.  Without the Temple, the Jewish people assumed they could have no religion and their existence as a unique people would be gone.   Try to wrap your minds around this, because we have nothing like it in the Christian religion.

Jesus makes one deliberate comment in reply to one of the disciples statement.  We don't know which disciple it was.  Jesus tersely replied, "Do you see these huge buildings?  They will certainly be thrown down.  Not one stone will be left in place."

Thrown down.  Destroyed.  Put down.  The word Jesus used infers intention.  The Temple will intentionally be thrown down.  It won't be like an old abandoned farm house out in the middle of no where, the roof caved in, trees growing out of shattered windows, cows using it for shelter in the Winter.  No, not like that.  Intentionally thrown down.

If you're with me here, or ahead of me, you're asking the question, "By whose intention will the Temple be thrown down?"  What kind of force would be needed to make it so, "Not one stone will be left in place"?

What is the answer to our questions?  Whose intention is it to "throw down" the Temple?  Remember, Jesus was the one who made the statement.  (God.)  Now, even more questions:  "Why would God intend to destroy this connection between himself and the people?"  And, "If it is God's intention, how does a person survive that intention?"

In a dystopian novel I finished reading a month ago, one of the characters said to another, "There are only two things in life:  survival or death."  I would add, "And eventually there is only death."

That seems to be the way the universe is designed.  So many challenges along the way testing our survivability.  Think of the great empires of history, Babylonian, Assyrian, Roman, Ottoman, Genghis and Kubla Kahn.  All gone.  Cultures of all kinds, gone.  Historical figures, some amazing, some amazingly despotic--it doesn't matter, they are all gone.

Ring around the rosie

Pocket full of posies

Ashes, Ashes,

We all fall down.

That children's rhyme may have been about the bubonic plague, but it is nonetheless true about everything else in life.  Nothing is permanent.  We all fall down.

It doesn't matter if you're a human being, a 600 ton stone, an institution, an empire, or even a religion.  Jesus said it will all be thrown down.

We would like to think that there has to be something permanent in this world.  Take Jesus' statement a step further.  Think of a mountain.  A beautiful, majestic mountain.  Snow capped.  Inspiring.  Solid.  Immovable.  Like Mt. St. Helens.  Or Krakatoa.  Symbols of solidity, in a moment blown sky high as the volcanoes they are.  Isn't the very earth we stand on foundational and firm and stable?  Until an earthquake or mudslide lets you know otherwise.

There must be something permanent.  Something that will always be.  Like a vow--that sacred promise made between a man and a woman.  A vow with supposedly that added strength of love behind it.  Right?  Until you read the statistics: 50% divorce rate.  And even if the vow is not broken by divorce, it can be undermined fiercely by affairs, or bad communication, or scores of other things.

There must be something permanent, like our values and beliefs.  What's more foundational to a person's life than their core beliefs?  You establish those unshakable beliefs in your life and use those to keep you standing throughout your life.  But there is this conspiracy inherent in life that these situations keep getting thrown at us that shake the stones of our values loose.  Down they come.

The people were angry with Jesus because he dared to say that the very things we hold on to in life in order to gain a sense of permanence will ultimately fail us.  Even the Temple and the whole religious institution and experiences that it symbolizes.   Jesus could have just as easily said, "Look around at all the solidity you think is represented by Christianity.  Christianity will be thrown down."  We would be aghast.  And we would crucify him for even hinting at dismantling our religion.

"We all fall down."

How would you live life if you realized there is nothing permanent?  That all the sturdy stones you think you are building your life with will all be thrown down?

The Christian monk, Thomas Merton, once equated our push for building permanence with the word "noise."  In No Man Is An Island, Merton wrote:

Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else...The urgency of their swift movement seems to ignore the tranquility of nature by pretending to have purpose...The silence of the sky remains when the plane is gone...It is the silence of the world that is real.  Our noise, our business, our purposes, and all our fatuous statements about our purposes, our business, and our noise: these are the illusion.

Being in the silence as the only thing that is true and permanent is an important concept for Merton.  I think the silence is represented by at least three qualities.  The first is love.  Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 that "Love never ends."  There is that about love that found in the silence, that has nothing to do with stonework or the trivial things we grab a hold of that we define as bringing permanence to life.  Love is one of the three qualities of what Merton means by the silence.

The second quality is God's presence.  Hebrews 13:5 states, (and this is God talking) "I will never leave you nor forsake you."  And at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus told his disciples, "I will be with you always, even to the end of the world."  God's presence is that quality of being in the silence that has nothing to do with religion, religious institutions, or all the stonework that we can construct.

The third quality of the silence is God's rule.  Hebrews 1:8 states, "Your rule, O God, is forever and ever."  Again, God's rule has nothing to do with denominations or religions or temples or stonework.  God's rule has nothing to do with boundaries or human authorities.  It is God's rule.  By God.  Through God.  It is God in the silence, not in all the noise we create, especially by all those who are incessantly filling our ears with  all the talk that they know exactly what God wants, thinks and wills.

Is that what Jesus is telling the disciples?  Get away from the noise.  The noise these stones are creating.  The noise the religion going on within these stones is creating.  The noise of all the permanence building people are doing that is ultimately flimsy and worthless.  Leave it all behind.  It's all going to fall down anyway.  Come into the powerful silence of love, and God's presence, and God's rule.

Not What, But How

"Not What, But How"

Mark 12:41-44

There is the story of the millionaire who was sitting in church.  He got up to give his testimony and he said, “I owe everything I am today to a certain experience I had in church long ago.  I was down to my last dollar.  The offering was being taken up.  As the plate was nearing my row, I had a decision to make.  Was I going to give up that last dollar for the Lord, or hold on to it along with the last shred of security it symbolized?  The offering plate came to me and I joyfully put in the last dollar I had to my name.  The Lord honored that, and has blessed me greatly since that day—all because I was willing to give all I had.”

At that point a voice came from the congregation saying, “I dare you to do it again.”

The desire or call to be sacrificial in one’s giving is a difficult choice.  It doesn’t matter if you are a person of great wealth or if you are a person down to your last two pennies.  For most people, the level of what it means to be down to your last two cents is different in each circumstance.  I remember a tearful news conference where Tammy Fae Bakker, of the PTL Club, was pouring out her heart because she and her husband Jimmy were down to their last $100,000.  She tearfully told the TV audience she didn’t know how she and Jimmy were going to survive.  I doubt if Tammy Fae ever considered giving away what she considered to be her last two coins.

Should it have been considered?  That is, regardless if a person is a millionaire, or if they are Jimmy and Tammy Fae down to their last $100,000, or if they are a legitimate widow who holds in their hand their last two mites—not even worth a penny, is the expectation of Jesus that it should all go into the offering plate?  That real giving is only total giving?  Is that what Jesus is calling attention to here?

Let’s examine those questions with as much openness as is possible, since talking about your money and what you do with it is probably as sensitive a topic as you will face.

Jesus positioned himself “opposite the treasury.”  He had just had an engaging discussion with the Sadducees and the Scribes in the inner court of the Temple.  Perhaps he had come out to the outer court where anyone could congregate in order to get a breather from all that heavy discussion.

There were seven horn shaped receptacles across from him that were for the gathering of people’s offering.  The court was probably crowded with people coming and going from those offering receptacles, depositing their coins.  You get the impression that this was a common pastime of watching people put in their offering.  Jesus was just fitting himself in with the crowd of people watchers.

What was he watching, exactly?  I don’t know if Mark intended it, but in telling this story he stated that Jesus was watching how the people put their money into the offering containers.  Some may have walked up and dropped their money in.  Kids, you could imagine, may have made a game out of it by playing some early version of basketball with their money, trying to flip coins in from some distance.  And others must have brought their offering in with fanfare and ceremony.

Those who got the most attention and created the most “ooo’s” and “aah’s” must have been those who brought in the most money.  If they didn’t draw attention with some grand entrance, then the clinking of so many coins being dropped in would have.

When I lived in San Jose, California there were a couple of times I got to stay in a church member’s “cabin” at Lake Tahoe.  I don’t know why they called it a cabin.  It was a five bedroom, four bathroom house.  One of the things I like about Lake Tahoe was the different kinds of wildlife, including what I’d find in the casinos on the south shore.  It was fun sitting and watching people play the slot machines and what would happen when someone hit a jackpot.

Around the dollar machines the reaction was more dramatic.  This was back in the good-old-days when actual coins shot out of the machine and hit the metal pot at the bottom with a tremendous clatter.  That continual clanging of coins, while all the time a bell was ringing and a red light was flashing on top of the machine, was an impressive racket.  Then they would gather their coins, filling the paper buckets the casino would hand out, fingers getting all gray from the oxidation on the coins.

Heads turned and watched and listened until the clamor stopped.  When I would win a jackpot at my nickel machine I’d feel a little embarrassment and some paranoia with all those eyes and ears aimed in my direction.  Then those who watched would go back to their machines, hard at it, hoping they would be the next big winner.  No one was impressed when a jackpot only yielded two or three coins.  It’s the big ones that make the difference.

So it must have been at the temple treasury—what was really impressive was the size of the offering brought in and dumped in the brass horns.  What really got people’s attention was the big clanging noise.  Those who got the big pat on the back were those who put in large amounts.  They were the ones who got the recognition from not only those gathered around, but also from the priests.  The people with lots of coins were the ones held up as an example of mighty and faithful giving.

What we must realize is that even though some of the offerings were large, when seen in proportion, they were only what the Jewish law prescribed.  There were strict guidelines to make sure that everyone was pulling their weight in terms of giving the mandated 10% of one’s income.  Thus, percentage wise, those people giving large amounts of money were giving no more and no less than those who put fewer coins in the pot.  Some just had more wealth, so their 10% added up to be more coins than others.

The sad mistake being made by some of the givers and some of the onlookers may have been that because some people gave more coins they were deemed more important.  Or that they were doing something more noteworthy than others.  Especially compared to the woman who quietly and quickly entered this scene, put in two coins not even adding up the value of a penny, then just as quietly and unnoticed, disappeared back into the crowd.

Permit me to ask more questions about this scene.  Is Jesus making a value judgement about the rich and poor here?  Are the rich being slammed, or is Jesus simply reporting a fact about the poor widow and letting his disciples grapple with the implications?  Jesus said nothing about the motive of those who put their money in the pot.  Jesus said nothing about people’s motive for giving as if they were only doing so for show and ostentation.  Mark simply told us that the rich were putting in a lot of coins, with no additional comment from Jesus.

Likewise, we must ask if Jesus was making a blanket statement in praise of the poor?  Or was Jesus highlighting the somewhat foolish things that some people do with their money?  There was a poll taken trying to find out how much of people’s income goes toward different kinds of spending.  One person, who was visibly poor, said, “I spend 50% of my income on housing, 10% on clothing, 40% on food, and 20% on incidentals”

“But sir,” the interviewer said, “that adds up to 120%.”

“Don’t you think I know it!” the man retorted.

But Jesus appeared to make no value judgement about the woman or her motivation.  She could have been giving for just as wrong a reason as the rich were.  She could have been giving out of a feeling of guilt.  Or she could have been giving as if she were putting money in a slot machine, hoping for some big Godly payoff.  Or she could have been trying to leverage God, forcing goodness out of God.  Again, these are questions, the answers to which we don’t know, and would be futile speculating about.

Instead, we must focus attention on what Jesus did for his disciples.  The disciples would have been missed it entirely if Jesus hadn’t pointed it out.  The fact that he had to call the disciples over to point out the woman, who was quickly making her way out of the temple, tells us they wouldn’t have noticed her on their own.

And that’s a lot of it, isn’t it?  Some things aren’t always what they appear.  There is something of deeper value for the disciples—and us—to learn once we discover what Jesus knows about the woman:  “…she put in all she had…”

How did Jesus know that that was all she had?  Did he notice how she stroked the coins with her thumb an fingers a while—hold them in the deepest part of her palm until they were as warm as her heart?  Was he watching her as she stopped to ponder, turn away, returned again, stopped, took a deep breath, and then dropped them in?  Just how could he tell?  The story is not intended to answer that question either.  It is simply a given that Jesus could tell, somehow.

The question then becomes:  What is it about us, something that is visible, that can be detected about the kinds of givers we are?  Karl Menninger, founder of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, pointed out that to be able to give money away is indicative of mental health.  He said, “Generous people are rarely mentally ill people.”

On the other hand, stinginess is usually a sign of neurosis.  It is a mental disorder that bears little relation to the amount of money one may have.  The person with millions may live in just as desperate fear that he won’t have enough, as the person who will be thrown out on the street if the welfare check doesn’t come in time to pay the rent and utilities.

In talking with one patient, Menninger asked, “What on earth are you going to do with all that money?”

The patient replied, “Just worry about it, I suppose.”

Dr. Menninger then asked, “Do you get that much pleasure out of worrying about it?”

“No,” the man replied, “but I get such terror when I think of giving some of it away.”

Here’s a bit of geographical trivia you may already know.  The Dead Sea in Israel is dead because there are no outlets.  Water comes in from the Jordan River, but no where along the shore of the sea is there somewhere for outflow.  So the water just sits there, filling up with minerals and stagnating.

I wonder if that is descriptive of what Jesus, and others, can see that’s visible in ungiving, ungenerous people:  a certain mis-adjusted attitude that only gathers but never distributes; that takes in, but never flows out; pooled up to do nothing but stagnate the heart and spirit of a person.

The great Scottish preacher and author of the early 1900’s, George MacDonald (who I mentioned last week as being so influential on C.S. Lewis) once said, “…all that God makes must be free to come and go through the heart of His children; they can enjoy it only as it passes, can enjoy its life, its soul, its vision, its meaning, but not (hold on to it for) itself.”  Maybe that’s what Jesus saw in the woman, the flow that was never allowed to stop and stagnate in her heart, but instead continued its cascade of life through her.

Imagine how empowering that perspective could be to the poor widow—to anyone?  In comparison to the amount of coins put in by the rich, she might as well’ve kept her mites.  But it wasn’t about what she gave.  It was about how she gave.  In a world where she was powerless in almost every sphere of life, her kind of giving resulted in a feeling of empowerment pointed out by Christ.

In all the bluster and fanfare and clanging of coins, the insignificant giving of one who has so little became a symbol with tremendous impact.  The widow made a difference not because of what she gave, but because of how she gave:  free flowing, wholeheartedly, powerfully, and entirely unnoticed save by the eyes of Him who sees beyond that which appears to us to be insignificant, but is not.