The Invitation to Serve

Mark 10:32-45

October 21, 2012

William G. Carter

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

            Through twenty centuries, the church has usually painted a pretty picture of the twelve original disciples of Jesus. Pious people have named churches after them, often referring to the first disciples as the rocks upon which Christ has built his church. You have heard of Saint Peter’s Cathedral. There is a monastery of Saint Thaddeus in Iran. With incense in the air, I have even heard somebody say, “Pray for us Saint Judas Iscariot, patron of all Christ’s betrayers.”

Yet anybody who hears the Gospel of Mark's stories about the disciples will wonder if they were saints at all. Mark gives us a tinted picture of who they were and what they wanted. Sure, the disciples walked the road with Jesus. They listened as he taught. They watched as he did signs and wonders. They followed where he led. However, according to Mark, they never really got the point. In fact, they usually look foolish.

            Today we hear about James and John scurrying up to Jesus while the others weren't looking. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do whatever we ask." Hear that for what it is: that is a shameless request. Those two brothers really didn't have the right to ask for a blank check. Jesus, in his eternal patience, decided to sound them out. "What do you want?" he said. They replied, "On the day when you enter your glory, when you ascend as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, at the great moment when you sit upon the throne over heaven and earth, we want to sit at your right and at your left."

            Well, it was a ridiculous request . . . and when the other ten disciples heard about it, they got very angry with James and John. They were upset, not because they thought it was the wrong request to make, but because James and John asked for it first. Those two lowly fishermen wanted two premiers seats in the Kingdom of God, two thrones of honor for that day when Jesus will finally shine in the fullness of his glory.

            This is what the Gospel of Mark reveals about the twelve disciples who stood closest to Jesus. They sound like children who play "King of the Hill." They shamelessly tried to scramble to the top of the heap. We hear them beg for power, and shake our heads in disbelief.

            It is jarring to hear such blatant self-promotion. We don’t expect that in the church, because out in the world, such attitudes are present every day. The world we know encourages us to take the initiative, climb the ladder, and push to the front of the line. "Blessed are the aggressive," says our culture, "for they will get what they want." If that means pulling the boss aside and making a private pitch, then that is what must be done. Like it or not, this is how the world works. How strange to see the same attitudes in the church, even if they may not be immediately obvious.

            Will Willimon is a a Methodist pastor. He once wrote about power and politics in his denomination. Methodist preachers, he notes, are under the care of a bishop. Bishops, in turn, are Methodist preachers who are elected by fellow Methodist preachers after an extensive campaign for the office in which the candidate tries not to be caught campaigning. As he observes,

It is a long-standing Methodist tradition that bishops must not appear to have sought their office and, once elected, the new bishop must make a public declaration that "I didn't seek this office and I didn't want it but, once the Lord calls . . . Methodist preachers take all of this with a grain of salt, the same way Baptist congregations have learned to be somewhat skeptical when one of their preachers moves on to a better church claiming, "I hate to leave this church and I would rather stay here, but the Lord calls." Baptists note that the Lord rarely calls someone out of one church into another church unless that church has a higher salary. Methodists have likewise noted that there have been few preachers who, once they are elected bishop, turn the job down.[1]

            The curious thing about Willimon’s words is that, shortly after he made that crack, he was elected the United Methodist bishop of North Alabama. And he didn’t turn down the job.

            "Teacher, we want you to put us on your right and on your left. But keep it quiet. Don't make it too obvious. Others may become offended that we asked first." By telling us this story, Mark knows what you and I know: anybody is prone to the same desire for privilege and protected status. We want a Jesus who will give us what we want, a Lord who can shower a little power on us, a Savior who can make us better than we are.

            It happens in congregations. I remember reading a book that a friend gave me when I became a minister. He wanted to knock the crust off my naiveté, so he gave me this tongue-in-cheek book. According to the book, here is the first principle of church life: "Despite the pious things we say, at any given time, less than five percent of any group in the church is operating with purely Christian motivation. The other ninety-five percent is asking, 'What's in it for me?’”[2]

            Oh, I read those words, and thought, "Oh, no. That's not true. Christian people are inherently generous and gracious. They are always eager to help, remaining free from selfish motives and concerns about getting their own way." Then I tried to gather a group to volunteer at a homeless shelter, and one after another said, "What's in it for me?" Somewhat discouraged, I attempted to gather adults to make meals for the homebound. Each one said, "What can I get out of it?"

            "Teacher, give us what we want. Give us the seats of glory." Jesus seems naïve when he replies, "You don't know what you're asking." We know perfectly well what we are asking. We want God to meet our unlimited, unchecked, unwarranted needs and help us get ahead.

            Yet in a deeper sense, any request for cheap success reveals we do not know what kind of God we meet in Jesus. "Look," he said to his disciples, "we are going up to Jerusalem. And it's uphill all the way. The road is hard and difficult. We face painful twists and turns. There will be suffering, humiliation, and death. There is no easy road to glory. Are you able to drink this cup? Are you able to bear this kind of baptism?" 

            James and John reply, "Sure, no problem." But do they really know? Do we know?

            Jesus came to proclaim the kingdom, the mysterious reign of God that grows like a secret seed, ever so gently, ever so silently, until it becomes the greatest of all plants. One morning, God willing, we will wake up and see this gift of God and we will wonder how it happened. We won't know. The kingdom grows in spite of us, in ways we cannot comprehend.

            The key is Jesus himself, who comes with a kind of paradoxical, left-handed power. Recall what Jesus does in the Gospel of Mark. One minute, he screams away the demonic forces that torment human minds, telling them to hush. The next minute, he gathers little children and lepers into the embrace of God. One day he shouts at wind and waves and all the turbulent powers of an unruly creation. Another day he rides a humble donkey into a hostile city. Once Jesus puts his fingers in the ears of someone who has never heard the good news of God. Immediately he uses his words as a scalpel for cutting away the cancerous lies that keep people from the health which God intends.

In every way, Jesus Christ has come to make a difference in this painful, haunted world. This is his mission. He has come to serve, not to sit on a throne with dull-minded disciples on his right and his left. He has come to give his life to pay off our ransom to the powers and principalities, to set people free from all that can damage, hurt, and destroy.

            Are you able to drink that cup? Are you able to share his baptism? Anybody who would follow Jesus must be a servant as he is a servant. It requires a total change in how we live. If we want to follow Jesus, we can't live for ourselves anymore. That’s what conversion looks like. We must give our lives in service to others.

            Richard Foster tells about receiving a phone call from a friend. The friend's wife had taken the car, and he wanted to know if Richard could take him on a number of errands. Richard was preparing to teach a college class, but since the man was his friend he reluctantly agreed. As he ran out the door, car keys in hand, he grabbed a book to read along the way. It was a book by Dietrich Bonhoffer called Life Together.

            Foster picked up his friend, and the errands did not go well. There were plenty of stops and starts, traffic was bad, and precious time kept ticking away. Finally they pulled into a parking lot, the friend got out, and Richard stayed behind with his book. He opened it to the bookmark, and read these words:

The second service that one should perform for another in a Christian community is that of active helpfulness. This means, initially, simple assistance in trifling, external matters. There is a multitude of these things wherever people live together. Nobody is too good for the meanest service. One who worries about the loss of time that such petty, outward acts of helpfulness entail is usually taking the importance of his own career too solemnly.[3]

            Ah, God gets through sometimes. Just when you are feeling so important, God gets through. Happens to me all the time.

            It happened at my high school graduation. I was elected senior class president; I was so proud of myself. Of course, my opponent was visiting Europe at the time of the election, so she couldn’t really campaign. So I was the president. That meant I could give a speech at graduation, an important speech by an important leader. I was so proud of myself. Worked on that speech for weeks.

            When the day came, and they called out my name, I stood regally and moved toward the platform. As I climbed the steps, my big feet started walking up the inside my graduation robe and I fell flat on my face. Ever try to give a speech when 320 of your classmates are laughing at you?

            And then, when it was all over, my mother said, “God did that, to make you humble.” Gee, thanks, Mom. So much for my big moment.

            To this day, I’m not sure I believe that God make us to fall on our faces. I think we just do that naturally. And if you’re living close to the ground, humble, it isn’t as far to fall. The word “humility” comes from the word “humus,” as in the soil, as in, “your feet are flat upon the ground.” You don’t think more highly of yourself than you need to.

            This is a picture of how we follow Jesus, the same Jesus who says, “I did not come to be served; I came to serve.” No pretention. No arrogance. No ambition to prove his power. Mark says, one day after another, Jesus went to the people where he could offer the most help. He set all glory aside and did what he could for the benefit of the people around him.

            You know, we have people like that in this church. A lot of people like that. They are tireless in doing what needs to get done. I am reluctant to single anybody out, but there are so many of you. Sometimes the service offered is quiet, behind the scenes, just a phone call, or a greeting card, or a simple offer of support. Maybe it’s a delicious meal made and delivered. Or a ride to a doctor, even a ride to a far-off hospital. It happens all the time around here. God bless those who serve. Not those who talk about serving, but those who actually do it. God bless you.

            This is the ministry of Christ that we do. We speak of the stewardship of our money, and that is critically important. But there is also a stewardship of power, to be lived out in the life of service. As Christ sets aside his glory, as he hides incognito in the Galilean countryside, so he calls us to set aside all self-importance to make a constructive difference in the places where we live, where we love, where we spend our time.

            Are you able? Can you drink that cup? Share his baptism? To follow Jesus, in our time, in our place, means to live for the benefit of other people. That’s why we are here. Not to stand out, not to single out, but to serve.

           

Jesus still asks the questions: "Are you able to drink my cup? Are you able to share my baptism? Are you able to walk with me, giving yourself to others in a life of service?" If we dare say yes, we must remember the road of discipleship is uphill all the way, and it leads to the foot of the cross. Whoever would follow Jesus must follow him all the way there. He never promised anything else.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] William H. Willimon, And the Laugh Shall Be First (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986) 94.

[2] David S. Belasic and Paul M. Schmidt, The Penguin Principles (Lima, Ohio: CSS Press, 1986) 17.

[3] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978) 117-8.

The Church That Christ Chooses

The Church That Christ Chooses

Mark 3:13-17, Exodus 19:1-6

October 7, 2012

A Sermon for the FPCCS Centennial

(Jesus) went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Every once in a while, somebody takes a survey of Bible knowledge. In our increasingly secular age, the pollster wants to know what information is still sticking. Can you name the four Gospels in the New Testament? Can you recite the Ten Commandments? Do you know how many Psalms there are? As of yesterday, I have been an ordained preacher for twenty-seven years, so I can get around the Bible pretty well.

But the one question where I will always stumble is the question that the Gospel of Mark answers for us this morning: What are the names of the twelve apostles?

Simon Peter, James and John. Andrew, Phillip, and Bartholomew. Matthew, Thomas, and the other James. Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot. There are twelve of them, just like the twelve tribes of Israel – and I couldn’t name those either, not without some help. We should be gentle on ourselves. Many of us past the age of forty can’t remember the three things that we wanted to pick up in the grocery store.

The Gospel of Mark makes a list of the twelve apostles, those Jesus appointed to stay with him. That’s not to say they all stayed with him. They weren’t perfect. There is Judas, of course. But the other eleven also scattered after Jesus was arrested. Jesus chose them, and they weren’t perfect.

In fact, of all the Gospels, Mark is the one who paints the most negative picture of the twelve. Every time Jesus asked a question, they got it wrong. He taught them every day, and they never understood. One day, he explained that he would be crucified in Jerusalem, and they started bickering among themselves. He said, “What are you arguing about?” And they said, “Lord, which one of us twelve apostles is the most important?” They didn’t understand him.

Simon Peter, James and John. Andrew, Phillip, and Bartholomew. Matthew, Thomas, and the other James. Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot. That is the list. There are a few things that I want you to notice.

It’s not a complete list. These are the names of twelve men, and everybody knows there are more women in church than there are men. That is a statistic to be proved by looking around. Elsewhere, the New Testament reminds us that some women followed Jesus and funded the ministry of Jesus out of their own purses.[1] It never says the men coughed up any money. They argued about money but they didn’t seem to contribute any. Mark’s list is not complete. Women belong on the list.

What’s more, this is not an accurate list. Forget what somebody told you about the Bible. The Bible does not exactly agree who is on the list.[2] Matthew copies Mark’s list, but Luke doesn’t mention Thaddaeus. Instead he mentions a second man named Judas, son of James. And when we get over to the Gospel of John, he mentions somebody named Nathanael. We don’t even know who that is. Some of the pious scholars scramble to say things like Thaddaeus, Judas, and Nathanael are all the same person – but the Bible doesn’t worry about straightening that out.

The only time we see anything like all twelve disciples standing still is when Leonardo DaVinci told them to get on the same side of the table so he could paint them into his picture!

This is not a complete list. It is not an accurate list. But let me say it: this is a diverse list. Sure, Mark tells us about twelve men. In our imaginations, we can picture them at thirty years old with curly hair. Yet it’s hard to imagine a group like this ever being convened.

There are two sets of brothers, Simon and Andrew, James and John. They left behind their fishing boats and their fathers. Jesus came from the hill country, a euphemism for “the sticks.” We don’t know anything about Thomas, Thaddaeus, or James 2.0.

But we know something about Matthew – a tax collector, a despised collaborator who worked for the Empire. He swindled his own neighbors to fund the soldiers who occupied their town. Standing next to him is Simon the Canaanean – a Zealot, a revolutionary with a dagger under his cloak, ready to take out the tax collectors like Matthew. And Jesus called both of them to be part of his team. That would be like inviting Daniel Berrigan and Pat Robertson to the same Passover Seder. Or seating Grover Nordquist and the Rev. Al Sharpton in the same church pew.

Not only that. We are pretty sure that eleven of the disciples came from the northern territory of Galilee. The twelfth may have been the man from Kerioth – “ish-Kerioth” or “Iscariot” – Kerioth was a town way down south in Judah. So there may have been eleven Yankees and Judas the Confederate. Jesus wants them all at his side. Diverse backgrounds, different political views, distinct geographies – none of that matters to him, because he chooses them all.

It’s a photograph of the church. This is what a church is like. Diverse, young, old, male as well as female, whoever, wherever, however. There is no unanimity in the group, except as Christ calls them. And that’s the point of it all. Standing at the center of this new community is Jesus. He is what they hold in common.

OK, we have two sets of brothers: Peter and Andrew, and James and John. But that can be awkward. Ever have two brothers who agree on everything? Every national election, my brother and I cancel each another’s votes.

And who knows how many of them were married? Earlier this Gospel says Simon Peter had a mother-in-law. I guess that means he also had a wife. But we don’t know her name, or how she felt about him quitting the fish business and running after Jesus. Did they have kids? Did she have to watch them while he gallivanted around Galilee? It’s almost as if Mark says that family status is irrelevant when it comes to following Jesus. What matters is that you know that he is calling you – and that he is giving you work to do.

Now we get to the heart of the matter. Jesus calls the twelve and gives them two-fold work: to proclaim his Message and to cast out the demons. The Message proclaimed was clear: that God is coming close, that God shall rule over earth as clearly as God rules heaven, and that we must make the necessary adjustments to welcome God’s ownership of our lives. “Preach the Message,” Jesus says. The time is right here, God rules over us right now, so change your lives to claim God’s love.[3]

To cast out demons is first-century code language for confronting everything that resists God. If illness twists people out of shape, we must confront it. If hatred oppresses a human life, we must cast out the hatred. If evil sneaks in, and entices us to give in to lesser gods, we speak the truth that only the God of heaven is worthy of allegiance. It is hard work casting out the demons, if only because they look so respectable. But Jesus gives his people power. He equips them to work together and make a difference.

This is what matters. Jesus calls together a bunch of diverse people, with different backgrounds and different skills. And he says, “Proclaim the authority of God over all of human life!”

From this we can extract all kinds of principles. Here’s one: in a diverse group called “church,” you might not get your way all the time. You might not get your way at all. Instead we work together to pursue God’s way. The most important question before the church is always this: What does it mean, in our place, in our time, that God rules over human lives? What would it look like for us to build the love of God? To welcome the justice of God? To do the work of God?

I’ve noticed that when churches stop asking these questions, they start to fizzle out. Perhaps they get tangled in personality disputes; the “Sons of Thunder” start mouthing off rather taking care of the neighborhood, or Matthew the tax-collector and Simon the revolutionary start plotting harm to one another in the parking lot. If a church, like any other organization, is merely a human organization, it can go off the rails in a hundred different ways. And it will need a Book of Order to keep Christian disciples from beating up on one another.

But the true church of Jesus is always more than a human organization. It is a holy fellowship, commissioned by Jesus to do the work of God. We are God’s tactical team on this planet. We welcome God’s Breath to fill our lungs, we pray for God’s Power to push us into action, and we know God’s Spirit will raise our spirits. Christ infuses his people with his own presence. When we put a bridle on our own whims, when we submit our willfulness to God’s greater will, the Gospel Message takes on skin and bones – and the world’s demons can be chased away.

That is why we are here, my friends. That is why he chooses us. We are part of a world-wide movement to enflesh the life of Jesus Christ. We are here to love all the people that Jesus loves. We are here to do the work that Jesus inaugurated. And to every destructive power that threatens God’s children, we say, “Christ is risen! Get you gone!”

In the year 1912, when Mrs. William Gibbons prayed this church into being, when she discerned that God wanted Presbyterian Christians in this town, she began, not with a dozen men, but with a dozen or so women. That is because God’s work is never restricted by who we are; it is only restricted by our unwillingness to do the work. In a church where Simon Peter and Judas Iscariot serve side by side, there is room for all of us.

We don’t have to have faith all figured out in advance. We don’t have to be right about everything. We don’t have to compel everybody else to agree with us. We don’t have to worry about who is on the list and who is not, because it is not our list. It is his list.

So we gather around his Table to sing that Jesus our Lord is at the center of it all. In broken bread, we affirm that his steady work of salvaging the world is the most important work of all. We do this work together, and we do this work with him. It isn’t easy. Crosses will be handed to us. Betrayers will appear from time to time. Faith will be tested. Even strong Simon Peter will have moments when he thinks he is unworthy.

But here we are, “chosen of the Lord and precious.” We are the church that Christ chooses. Look around. We are the kind of people that Jesus loves. We are the ones who bear his love to the world. And if he can love us, he can love everybody.

© William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Luke 8:1-3

[2] Compare Mark 3:13-19 with Matthew 10:1-4 and Luke 6:12-16

[3] Mark 1:14-15

A Well-Spoken Church

James 3:1-12

September 23, 2012

William G. Carter

How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. 

            This is a Bible text that can change a room. As soon as it is lifted into the sanctuary air, it addresses us like few other passages of scripture. Wise old James speaks to the church. He says, “Be careful what you say.” He looks over his shoulder to the preachers and says, “Not many of you should teach the faith, my brothers and sisters, because as soon as you open your mouth, you are prone to make many mistakes.” Then he looks back at the rest of us, and warns us about the destructive power of words.

            Anybody know what he is talking about? A friend reminds me of the moment that most of us have known. You are thick in a discussion with somebody you love, and you blurt something out. And you want to reach out with your hand and grab the words that just escaped your mouth, and try to push them back in.

“The tongue is a restless evil,” says Brother James. “It is full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.” So today, in the hope that we can be a well-spoken church, let’s have a conversation about our words.

First of all, the syllables we speak shall reveal who we are. If we are bitter and brackish, so shall be our words. There is a consistency between who we really are and what we say. Peevish is peevish. Generosity reveals generosity. Those who are being saved by God will neither be small-minded or forked-tongued. God’s power at work within us sets us free from speaking as if God is mean and judgmental.

In this regard, James draws upon the words of Jesus, from the 12^th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew:

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

The good person brings good things out of a good treasure,

and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure.

I tell you, on the day of judgment

you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter;

for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
(Matthew 12:34-37)

To say it simply, we need to watch what we say – and when we speak, let our words reflect the good work that God seeks to do within us.

Craig Barnes is a pastor in Pittsburgh. He says he has lost count of all the times when his church members say, “I’m sorry I got into an argument at the committee meeting last night, but I have a short temper. That’s just the way I am.”

Craig says he always replies, “No, that’s not who you are. You are who God made you to be, and God didn’t make you angry.”[1] For the scriptures are clear: “We are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”[2]

We are created for good works. Brother James says that over and over again.

That leads me to the second thing I want to say: the first good work is the spoken word. In the Hebrew language, the word is considered the deed. Speaking is something that we do, a primary expression of what we believe and what we commit ourselves to do.

·         The emergency room nurse looked into the eyes of a frightened woman. She said, “I will get you the care that you need,” and she was good for her word.

·         The math teacher nodded toward the struggling student, and said, “If you drop by after the final bell, I will help you figure out what is confusing you.” Bell rings, student returns, teacher is waiting for him.

·         A minister stands before two people who love one another, who can’t wait to enjoy life together even though there are moments when they drive one another crazy. She asks them a question, waits for an answer, and for the last nine years I have pondered the meaning of those two little words, “I do.”

Our words matter because our words are our deeds. We are created to make promises and keep them, to describe the world truthfully, to welcome the voices that once were silenced – and most of all, to say what we know about God.

After all, and this is the third thing I want to say: the God of the Bible is a God who speaks, a God who is known by what God says: “Let there be light! Let there be life! Let my Word take flesh and save the world!” God says it – and God does it. The Christ-follower can never separate the Word and Deed.

When I’m done with this sermon, we will stand and sing our faith: “I believe in God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord . . .” Over the centuries, people have fought over those words, just to get them right. All of our big theological statements took time to be spoken, because they are important and because they point to what we believe to be true.

Say it’s time for the creed. If you ever stand in church and discover your tongue has gone on autopilot, stop and pull it out of gear. Never speak the ancient words as if they lost their meaning. Speak them as if they are written in blood, as if they matter more than everything else. Take a deep, deep breath and exhale the truth along with all of the other believers. God gave you that breath, to start with, God formed the thought in the church’s brain, and God listens for the church to speak as it receives. Worship words are just that important!

And since they are important, they are the first to be neglected. That brings me to one more point that I want to say – how tragic it is when we mistreat our words!

For a brief time before I was a pastor, I was a church custodian. It was the summer of 1984, in the little town of Nichols, New York. They wanted me to preach for four weeks in a row, and they wanted me to tidy up after I was done. It was good experience: a little church with big expectations. I said, “Do you have a job description?” They gave me a job description. I took one look at the first item and I was amazed. I pointed to it and asked, “Do you really want me to do this?” Oh yes, was the answer. That is the Number One chore.

So I shrugged and did as they requested. On Sunday morning, I preached the sermon. I did the best I could. On Monday morning, I went back, unlocked the door, reached into a closet, pulled out a large push broom, went into the sanctuary, and swept up all the used words.

There were all kinds of words. Old words like “theology.” Young words like “balloon.” Tired words like “righteousness.” Busy words like “grace.” All of those words were left behind. After everybody departed the church, they discarded a pile of used words. On Sunday morning, I put them into the air. On Monday, I returned to sweep up all the words that had fallen flat on the floor. It was discouraging.

Ever since I have wondered – how is it that so many of our words run out of helium? They simply flutter down and flop on the floor. I have a theory, that maybe we simply talk too much – that we have one tongue and two ears, but many of us speak twice as much as we listen.

To sum it up, finally, we have to mind our mouths, all of us, and be stewards of what we say. We live in a yackety time, when people post every passing thought as their Facebook status, when television advertisements are four decibels louder than the shows they are funding, when words constantly bombard us until they have no meaning.

Might I suggest, as a Sabbath discipline, that we fast from all the extra words? If you must watch football this afternoon, turn off the sound and enjoy the game. Resist checking your e-mail until sundown. Give your eyes and ears and tongues a rest. Let the Words of God be sufficient to sustain you. If we must speak, speak as God speaks, with syllables as these: You belong to me – Blessed are the poor – I have loved you with an everlasting love - Take care of the widow and the orphan – and perhaps my favorite of all God’s sayings, The Table is set and all is ready.

“Be slow to speak,” says Brother James. It’s good advice – especially so we come to treasure the words that really matter. You may remember a line attributed to either George Eliot, Abraham Lincoln, or that great theologian Mark Twain, “It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” Actually all of them borrow it from the book of Proverbs: “Fools who are silent are considered wise; when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent.” (17:28)

Did you hear about the Christian monk who lived in the Egyptian desert? He survived in the sands by living carefully, depending on the mercy of others, and devoting his life to prayer. He never spoke. When friends took him food, they would approach him with the basket. Brother Agathos looked up, smiled, and nodded. As they set the meal before him, he would spit a small stone out of his mouth.

The friends took him food once a week. Every time it happens – they bring the basket, he looks up and smiles, they set the food before him, and he spits a small stone out of his mouth.

One time, one of the friends simply had to ask, “What are you doing?”

Brother Agathos said, “Learning to be silent.”[3]

            Ah – when somebody like that speaks, I will listen. The well-spoken church knows how to listen. It also knows how to sing.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Craig Barnes, The Pastor as Minor Poet, p. 94

[2] Ephesians 2:10

[3] Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, p. 30.

An Intentionally Blind Church

James 2:1-10, 14-17

September 16, 2012

William G. Carter

As we continue the countdown toward our hundredth anniversary, we think again about the church. What kind of church are we called to be? The letter of James begins with an observation, and moves to a challenge.

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please’, while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there’, or, ‘Sit at my feet’, have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it…

. . . What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

A few years ago, the United Church of Christ spent some money on an advertising campaign. The television spots were simple. It’s Sunday morning and people are going to church. As they arrive, there are two bouncers at the door. They turn aside the two men who arrive together, and allow in the blond family with well behaved children. The African-Americans, the man in the wheelchair are denied entrance, while the well dressed elderly couple is welcomed with their big checkbook. The bouncers look grim, and then the tagline fades up: Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.

The advertising campaign struck a nerve. Other churches grumbled. So the United Church of Christ dug in, and just in time for Easter, they created a follow-up campaign. It’s Sunday morning again, and people are sitting in church. The worship service is underway, and the ushers pay attention to who is present. A baby is crying in the fifth row. Not a problem; the usher hits a red button, the baby and his mother are ejected out of the room. The undesirable couple, the homeless woman, the old man in a walker – on by one, the usher hits the red button, and they fly out of their ejector seat pews.

Maybe you remember the ads, which were carefully timed to appear during Holy Week. What you may not remember is the outcry. A friend of mine in Cleveland was part of the U.C.C. staff that dreamed up the commercials. He said they received a mountain of mail. Some of it said, “Say whatever you want, but in our congregation, we reserve the right to reject anybody.”

Now, I know. That strikes a nerve in some of us. We have heard the lesson for today. It’s straight-forward. God welcomes everybody. God creates everybody, so God welcomes everybody. That’s the word from Brother James. All else is commentary; except, it is nearly impossible to welcome all the people that God welcomes.

It is there in our gestures. Have you ever noticed what our hands declare?

The hand says “Enter…”

The hand says “Halt . . . “

The hand says, “Come and sit right here . . .”

The hand says, “Move along . . . sit over there . . .”

The hand says all of this, for the hand reveals the heart. If the heart is welcoming and hospitable, the gesture reveals openness and generosity. If the heart is anxious or fearful, the hand will reveal it.

James is acquainted with those gestures in the church. He has seen them in his own church. The rich person enters and is escorted to the choice seat. If the needy person in dirty rags is there, she is told to move, if not ejected.

Please note: we are not talking about reserved seats in the concert hall. A hundred dollar ticket puts you right down front, while the cheap seats are in the balcony.

James is not talking about that. No, he is speaking of “the assembly.” That is the tag-phrase for the sanctuary, the synagogue or the sanctuary, where every child of God is invited, and where the hosts and hostesses are called to welcome them. It is a church that is intentionally blind to the distinctions of the world.

Did you see the movie “Finding Neverland”? It’s the story of J.M. Barrie who wrote “Peter Pan.” He is failing as a playwright. Nobody came to see his last show, and he has lost all inspiration. The muse returns, he drafts the words, books the theatre, hires the actors – but fears that nobody will actually come. So he goes to the waifs homes of London, visits the orphanages, and offers free tickets to any child who will come. Soon the theatre is jammed, and the play is a huge success – because he welcomed the little ones that the rest of the world turned away.

It’s a metaphor for the Gospel. Jesus said, “Let the little ones come to me.” He meant the children, to be sure, but in the broadest possible sense, the little ones. He welcomed both the little and the big, the rich and the poor, the ones who heard him gladly and those who were still working through the implications of his message.

At the heart of it all is the experience of evidence of welcome. The gesture of inclusion – “y’all come.” This reveals the heart, not only of the point person at the door, but the very heart of the whole institution.

My daughter and I took a whirlwind tour of four colleges in Boston. We returned last night. Every college is distinctive, of course. Some of them require a distinctive amount of money.

We visited one school where the tour guide was indifferent. She didn’t make eye contact to any of us, took little interest in our questions, and basically moved through the tasks of the work-study job. It was a big school – no surprise – and I can imagine that the students often feel like mere numbers.

Then there was another college, where we went on a whim during a long lunch break. We didn’t know much about it, didn’t have much time, and stopped by to see if we could at least drive through campus. The guard at the gate could have turned us away. But he pushed back his denim cap, signed an orange pass, and pointed us toward a convenient spot in the parking garage.

Even then, we weren’t certain what we would see, since tours weren’t scheduled for the day. But the admissions receptionist smiled, offered us a conversation with a staff member, and that impromptu visit turned out to be the most hospitable stop of the whole tour.

It’s this sense of welcome that makes the difference. Brother James asks, “Do you really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” If you believe, it will be clear in your works of welcome. It’s obvious in treating the neighbor as we wish to be treated. It’s clear in how we postpone our own urges for the sake of the guest.

                                                                                                               

James puts this forth as his hope for the church of Jesus Christ – that it would be an intentionally blind church where all are welcome. Distinctions do not divide. The greatest possible good for the largest number of people is pursued. It’s a church where I work for your well-being because we are both children of God.

William Barclay explains the Greek words that James is using. They have to do with seeing, with looking upon the face, with regarding people for what you see about them. We see differently from what God sees. We see the nice clothing, the expensive haircut, the shined shoes, the manicured fingernails, the chiseled physique. Or we see the discounted blouse, the torn sleeve, the dime-store makeup, the downtrodden expression.

Do you know what God sees? A child of God! God looks at the human face and murmurs, “She looks like me. He was made in my image. Whether those people know it yet or not, they are my offspring.” Each one of us – you, and you, and you. Sisters, brothers. Different, but not better or worse. Each one identical in the love of God.

Henri Nouwen gets at this when he writes, “The church is one of the few places left where we can meet people who are different than we are, but with whom we can form a larger family.”

At our best, this becomes true. We welcome one another into our lives, sweet or ornery, all of us in the process of being changed by God’s love. Those who have a lot, those who have a little – all of us, all of us, have God in common, because God makes us and God loves us.

So the church is called to be something different from the football team. Football is fine as a sport, but you only get to play football if you are strong, mighty, and fast. And the church is something different from the office staff. In the office, there is a hierarchy, a pecking order, a gradation of value based on importance and significance. And the church is called to be something different from the clientele of the shopping mall. People go to the shopping mall to buy things, to make purchases, and that only makes sense if you have the money to go.

Oh no. We are different. In the church, we gather before the Word of God. We gather to hear how God chases after us, how God is always calling us out to trust, to love, to make a difference. We gather to hear the Word that shakes us out of our complacency and comforts us in our affliction. Most of all, we gather and we hear that every single one of us is wanted and beloved. Every single one, even the grumps. Every single one.

Because this is the church. The intentionally blind church, where every single person has infinite value.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

A Perfectly Adequate Church

James 1:1-18

September 9, 2012

William G. Carter

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

My good friend Bill McSwegin is gone a few years now. When he was among us, he made his way around the churches to see how they were doing. That was the kind of job he had – pastor to the pastors, executive pastor to the presbytery. And he regularly used a phrase on Sunday morning to greet the preacher after the sermon. He came up with a twinkle in his eye, moustache twitching, and he said, “That was a perfectly adequate sermon.”

Perfectly adequate. What did he mean by that?

A perfectly adequate sermon – maybe that means the sermon you get today is as good as it gets. It fulfills basic needs, and not much more. The preacher showed evidence of wrestling with the scripture text, found a couple of nuggets worth sharing, did not trip over the tongue more than a half-dozen times, and wrapped it up in a suitable time frame. Perfectly adequate.

Remember the last time you went to a perfectly adequate restaurant. The menu was predictable. The food was served without much of a wait. The wine was not watered down. The service was competent. You were not hungry when you went out to the parking lot. Perfectly adequate.

Imagine saying to your friends, “I have perfectly adequate children.” What would that mean? I suppose it could mean a lot of things. They eat their vegetables. They keep their rooms clean. They manage low B’s on their report cards. Best of all, they remember your birthday.

So what would it mean to say we have a perfectly adequate church? Perhaps it suggests that a respectable percentage of the pews have somebody sitting in them. Most of those assembled look pretty modest; the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average. An adequate church has reasonable expectations. They know every Sunday is not a jazz revival. The notes of the first choir anthem of the season land where they should. The offering plates reveal a post-vacation bump. And everything goes along as it always does. Perfectly adequate.

Except it sounds a little different when Brother James says it. The phrase he uses is “lacks nothing.” The church “lacks nothing.” They have been through some testing. They show some endurance. They reveal themselves to be perfectly adequate. They “lack nothing.”

We know people like this, don’t we? His wife is sick. The diagnosis catches them by surprise. She needs critical care. He goes every day to sit with her, even though she cannot do much more than sleep. But he goes every day. Eight in the morning, he pulls on his jacket, takes the car keys out of his pocket, and drives down to her room. He does that every day for two weeks. She looks at him with silver eyes and says, “You don’t need to push it. I’m not going anywhere.” He smiles silently and takes her hand.

One afternoon the doctor stops in to say, “I think we see a turn for the better.” All those prayers have gotten them through the vigil. A few days later, they both return home, worn out but relieved. They are different people. They have gotten through.

James writes to Christians who have been slogging through it for a while. Not quite a hundred years, but they have stuck around through the bumps on the road and the boredom of the straightaway. He begins this collection of Christian advice by noting simply that faith can be lived without a heightened sense of drama. We don’t need a lot of wattage. Don’t need to bring in a bevy of excitable people (whom James calls “unstable”). Don’t need to chase after things that entice us; these, he reminds us, are empty temptations. No, says James. Stay the course. Keep your wheels on the road. We are perfectly adequate in our endurance.

This is the voice of stability. We see it in those people who just keep going. God works on them over time. Have you been to the anniversary dinner? People are honored for keeping long promises. There may be little about them that is flashy or exhilarating. Hollywood will never make a movie about their lives. Perhaps an unstable culture would consider them boring. But James seems something healthy, something steady, something that matures over time. And those around them are changed mysteriously for the better.

Endurance is the first sign of a perfectly adequate people, a perfectly adequate church. And to burrow down to a deeper level, what makes endurance possible is the ability to receive. It’s the spiritual ability that knows everything we need over time is offered as a gift from heaven. Perfectly adequate people learn to receive everything from God.

James says, “If anybody is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.” Later on in the book, he says, “Is anybody among you suffering? Go ahead and pray. Are any of you sick? Call for the elders of the church and have them pray, and the Lord will raise you up.” There is something important here. Prayer is the practice of dependency. We do not pray because we are competent. We do not pray because we are complete. We pray because we depend on God. We pray because it is God’s generosity that makes us adequate.

This is one of the great paradoxes of the spiritual life. The strongest Christian is the one who depends most on God. The most competent Christian is the one who prays for forgiveness every day. In a do-it-yourself, pull-yourself-up society, this doesn’t make any sense. But it is a profoundly Christian truth, uttered by Jesus as the opening line of the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the strong” – no, he doesn’t say that. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

It reminds me of that Bible story from a few weeks ago. Jacob is running away after swindling his brother. Exhausted, he puts his head on a stone and goes to sleep. And what does he dream? A ladder extending between heaven and earth. And what’s happening on the ladder? Angels going up and coming down. There is a circular activity between heaven and earth.

As a preacher friend points out,

Overflowing generosity is the quality that describes the triune God. From God’s very being, all gifts of every variety flow freely and generously upon us. The usually somber John Calvin gushed that he “that he was ravished with astonishment” at the generosity of God, whose love knows no bounds and whose mercy is everlasting. (Have to love that phrase: “ravished with astonishment”!)[1]

We pray in our need, and James says, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” God’s generosity makes us adequate.

Beyond endurance, beyond dependence and receptivity, there is one particular gift that James encourages us to pray for. It’s the gift of wisdom. Wisdom. That is an unusual word. It’s not the same thing as intelligence. Some of us have met smart people who aren’t very bright. They park their car beneath a falling tree. Fred Craddock, the preaching professor, used to describe the student who got a 4.0 and missed the point. Or the expert in Bible Law who approved of Jesus when he said we should love our neighbors, but who really didn’t want to see a Samaritan as his neighbor.

When the Bible speaks of wisdom, it speaks of an applied knowledge. Wisdom is holding together the “knowing” and the “doing.” It is a gift of experience; go around the track a number of times and you learn how the track moves. Wisdom is a gift from God, a holy insight that stitches together the word and the deed. As James declares in his letter, “If people think they are religious and cannot bridle their tongues, their religion is worthless and they deceive themselves. Pure religion is to care for the needy in their distress.” The Word from above is expressed in the deed down below.

Have you known the person with that kind of wisdom? I think of the college professor with a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, intelligent and well-read, as smart as they come, and his professional specialty was working against discrimination in any form. A successful Sunday School graduate, he went to seminary, aiming to become a preacher. But he quickly became disillusioned when the teachers in his Christian school were silent as his country got entangled in an unjust war. So he took that disillusionment as God’s call on his life to go in a different direction. He is smart, humble, and completely integrated.

I think of the woman who wears out her knees in prayer. She prays for the sick, she prays for the healthy, she prays for the people who don’t think they need it, and she prays for her pastor and his ex-wife. Every day she prays, and you can see it in the light in her eyes which never diminishes.

I recall the teacher, looking at retirement, wanting to stay active and do something significant with her life. So she gets dirty mucking out houses that were flooded down river one year ago today.

And I think of the internet photo that somebody sent me yesterday. It’s a picture of a restaurant receipt. A young couple with kids discovered that their meal was paid for. The donor wrote on their receipt, “Somebody once paid for our diner when we were young parents and it made a mark on us. The foundation of this gesture was good parenting. Keep up the good work. Time goes by so fast.”

These are glimpses of pure and unstained religion, lived out in Christian wisdom, holding together the Word and the deed. And should this happen among us, we would be a perfectly adequate church – enduring, receptive, and wise.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Roy Howard, http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/2012/09/sermon-september-2-2012/