Handed Over for Our Trespasses...

Romans 4:22-5:11

February 25, 2018

Lent 2

William G. Carter

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Once in a while, we hear about somebody who dies a noble death. Of all the stories from Parkland, Florida, last week, the most compelling is the story of Scott Beigel. Scott was a geography teacher at Stoneman Douglas high school. When the shooting started, he unlocked a door to let in some students, so they could hide from the gunman, Nikolas Cruz.

“We thought our teacher was behind us,” said one of the students, “but he wasn’t. He was in the doorway and the door was still open. The shooter probably didn’t know we were in there. If he had come into the room, I probably wouldn’t be alive. Mr. Beigel saved my life.”

It was a courageous, virtuous act. Scott Beigel died shielding his students from gunfire. As one of his friends said, “He made the ultimate sacrifice to do what he so often did – make the lives of other people better.”[1]

His death was tragic, premature, unexpected, and above all, noble. Maybe you and I would have the same courage if the situation required it. Scott died for his students.

But here the question nobody wants to ask: who died for the shooter? Did anybody die to save him? In the text, the apostle Paul gives his answer: “Jesus died for the shooter.”

Take a breath, and let that sink in. That disgruntled young man had been expelled from the school. He plotted an attack when it was least expected. All the sidewalk psychologists want to diagnose his mental state or delve into his anger issues. There is nothing honorable or human in what he did.

His violent act has stirred up a necessary backlash against unnecessary weapons. A movement of students has risen up against the gun lobby and the politicians they have purchased. And who knows? Maybe this will finally be the singular event that turns the tide against the persistent violence in places that we expect to be safe. We can hope so.

Yet in the meantime, the apostle Paul speaks about the noble death of Jesus, and the implications are bracing. As someone paraphrases his words in Romans 5, “We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.”[2]

That is a harsh assessment of the human condition: people who are “no use to God.” Whom would that include? Those who gun down innocent teens and teachers are no use to God. Neither are those who offer thoughts and prayers with no action. They are “no use” to God. And yet, and this is the Gospel for today, Jesus dies for them.

It is an outrageous claim to make because it lies at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus dies for the ungodly.

I wonder sometimes if Paul is speaking first-hand about his own experience. In his letters, he doesn’t say much about his own story. If we want to hear more of that, we have to read about it in the Book of Acts. In the book of Acts, Luke writes about Paul persecuting the church. He was pulling the Christians out of their churches and ordering their deaths. He thought he was doing God a favor and saving the world from those heretics. In truth, he was “no use” to God. Ungodly.

And then, one day, on the road to Damascus, the Risen Christ appeared to him in a vision and knocked him off his high horse. “Why do you persecute me?” he asked. And Paul had no good answer. It was a holy intervention, a conversion moment, a second chance – and it totally turned Paul around. As he reports what the Christians now said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” (Galatians 1:23).

Oh yes, I think that when Paul writes his words in Romans 5, he’s not far from remembering his own story. Do you know I think that? Because nobody who has had such a major turnaround in his life is going to forget what he was – in light of what he is now. It’s impossible to forget about “before” when you’re living in the “after.” A true conversion, an authentic turnaround, is going to keep you humble.

Just ask the person you know, the person who is so much more than the person they used to be. What happened? What turned you around? Then settle down and listen to a long story.

A lot of Presbyterians struggle to tell stories like that. They are respectable folk, for the most part: teachers, attorneys, business folk. They may have flirted with a little sin, but they haven’t got into a lot of trouble.

Well, maybe. One of your children was telling me how she fell into a heroin addiction. “The white powder became more important than life itself,” she said. “It never occurred to me until later that I had become just like my dad, except his drug of choice was vodka. He hated himself for it. I hated myself too, and never thought I’d break free of my slavery to the needle.” It was her second attempt at rehab where a hard-as-nails counselor broke through the fog, and the young woman said, “It was the first time in years that it occurred to me that I was worthy of love.”

These days, she’s in a church some Sundays. She says the best part is not the sermon, not the music, not even the people – but looking up at a cross and remembering who loves her most. “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And I looked up the word. The word is “us,” as in “all of us,” as in “nobody is excluded, because ‘us’ means ‘all of us.’” Even the ungodly, especially the ungodly, even the shooter in Parkland, Florida; whether he knows it or not, Christ died for him, too. Would somebody tell him that, please? That’s the Gospel.

Left to our own devices, I suppose we would opt for punishment. Or retaliation. Or obliteration. Or giving an Uzi to the art teachers and the lady in the office who sniffs the white-out when nobody is looking. I mean, talk about the ungodly!

Have you noticed? The God of the Gospel is not in the punishment business. God is in the salvation business, the salvage operation business, the turning-from-darkness and turning-to-light business.

When the Temple leaders get Jesus condemned on trumped-up charges, God does not strike them down. When Pontius Pilate orders the crucifixion, God does not retaliate. When the soldiers drive spikes into the wrists and ankles of his Son, God does not mow them down with bigger weapons. That would be perpetuating the sickness of violence, and it would be ungodly.

No, God shows divine love for us, in that while we are at our worst, Christ dies to forgive our worst. God cancels the sin in order to win us back. And it’s up to us, beloved church, to do two things: to announce this Gospel to the world, and to let God win us back. Because Christ dies to cancel our sins too. He calls us to turn from the ways of death to start living his life.

One of my favorite writers, the Episcopalian Robert Capon, said this about Paul’s words:

The Gospel is not some self-improvement scheme devised by a God who holds back on us till he sees the improvements. Above all, Jesus wants to make sure we understand he doesn't care a fig about our precious results. It doesn't even make a difference to him if we're solid brass [jerks], because "while we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly." By the mystery of the Incarnation, he has included everybody, from Aalborg to ZZwickendorf. He's had you home free from the start, no matter what you've done; all you have to do is believe him. Therefore, God isn't fair: if he were fair, we'd all be in the soup. God is good: crazy, stark-staring-bonkers good.[3]

That’s good news. It’s the best news there is.

Billy Graham died this week at his home in Montreat, North Carolina. There was nothing particularly admirable about his death; he was ninety-nine years old and worn out, but there was plenty to admire about his life. Whatever else we could say about him, he consistently preached the Gospel of forgiveness, the Gospel of God’s second chance.

Sometime in the 1970’s, a woman named Velma Barfield fed her North Carolina preacher husband some tapioca laced with ant poison. It did him in. When the state medical examiner suspected foul play, they dug up the man’s body. The sheriff supervising the investigation was asked if an autopsy would confirm the murder. Apparently, he said, “All I know is there ain’t an ant within a mile of this cemetery.

It turned out Velma murdered a lot of people, some by poison, others by arson. She was easily convicted and ordered to be executed. While some protested the death penalty, Billy Graham’s wife Ruth began writing letters with Velma on death row. The conversation went deeper, Velma repented, asked Christ into her heart, and was redeemed.

With that, Ruth Graham began to plead with the governor, a Methodist, to spare Velma. Billy Graham took up the cause, as well, and the appeals went all the way to the Supreme Court. But nothing changed. The governor refused, leading someone to quip, “the governor was a liberal; he believed in equal rights for women more than he believed in the God of the Second Chance.”[4]

After her death, Billy Graham led a prayer meeting at the prison where she had been held. He praised her for the big impact she made on inmates’ lives before her execution. “She worked tirelessly to help other prisoners turn their lives around,” he said. Someone else added, “Everybody talks about rehabilitation, but here’s a woman who looked at her life and helped others.”

So, what do you think? Did she get off easy? Of course she did. She believed Jesus died to cancel her sin, our sin, all sin.

And I believe it too. How about you?

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

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[1] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article200747874.html

[2] Romans 5:8, in Eugene Peterson, The Message

[3] Robert Farrar Capon, The Mystery of Christ & Why We Don't Get It (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993) 90-91.

[4] Drawn from Will Willimon's reminiscince, at https://willwillimon.wordpress.com/2018/02/22/memories-of-billy-graham

To Bring You to God

1 Peter 3:13-22

Lent 1

February 18, 2018

William G. Carter

Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

The story is told of a young child going into a church for the first time. He was seven or eight years old. It was a Roman Catholic sanctuary, classic and ornate. The pews were hand carved, with fine detailing added by an artist’s paintbrush. The walls were lined with stained glass windows. With sunlight streaming in, the room was ablaze with color.

The air held traces of incense, lingering after a worship service held an hour before. It was the reminder of a heavy perfume, suggesting this was a special place, detached from the rest of the world. It seemed a room drenched in prayer. He paused for just a moment to take it all in. His head lifted toward the ceiling as he sniffed in all the prayers.

Just then, he noticed, high above his head, a figure on a cross. The eyes were closed, the head tilted, the mouth twisted. The little boy let out a gasp. It was frightening. He saw the nails and the crown of thorns. The pain of the figure on the cross was obvious.

And to no one in particular, he exclaimed, “He looks like he is having a really bad day.” Then he added, “So what did he do wrong?”

There’s a lot of theology in a young child’s comment, especially if they come to the church and see such a sight for the very first time. At the center of all Christian worship is a cross. The cross was the instrument of capital execution, state-sanctioned death. And in most of the churches in the world, if there is a cross, there is probably a figure on it.

I once asked a group of teenagers, “Why do you suppose we don’t have a body on our cross?” They looked at me blankly until one of them said, “Because we’re in denial.” There’s a lot of good theology in a teenager’s comment too. We can declare we have not figure up there because he is risen, and that’s true enough. But we can’t have a resurrection if nobody has died. And Jesus of Nazareth died.

The scripture readings this Lent will keep us focused on that. There is no rushing to Easter, not this year. Some of the readings that we will hear over the next six weeks will come from Jesus himself, as he looks ahead to what will be handed to him. And in the Bible, the words of Jesus are written down, thirty, fifty, sixty years after them, so the church has collected the words that they believe are most important for understanding the death of Jesus.

Other words, like the words we heard from First Peter, are words that come directly from the church. The early Christian leaders had some time to reflect on this particular death. How is it, that God could send his Son to the world, and the world would execute him? How could God become that vulnerable? How could we be that evil? These are mysteries that we never outrun.

The young boy looks upon the crucified figure of Jesus for the first time and blurts out, “He looks like he is having a really bad day.” There’s no joking about that. Crucifixion was a brutal business. The hammer and the nails went through flesh and bone. The soldiers whipped him with cruelty. And the custom was to display the crucifixions by the busiest highways, to warn others what would happen to them if they did something wrong. This was standard practice in the Roman Empire.

This is a hard thing to face. Maybe that teenager was right, too. We would rather not look upon a savage, sadistic act. Perhaps it is a form of denial, an emotional cushion to numb the hard reality of how Jesus actually died.

On the day before one more gunman shot up a school with a military weapon, the coroner of Clark County, Nevada, released the autopsy results of the fifty-eight people who were shot at the country music concert in Las Vegas. I will spare you the details; I glanced at twenty-three of them before I had to change the page.

The news reporters had this to say:

Shying away from that truth has only helped perpetuate a status quo in which many people have decided there’s nothing we can do to limit either the scope or the frequency of these tragedies. If that’s the path we continue to take, we should at least be willing to face up to the raw brutality of the incidents that we have accepted as an unavoidable feature of American life.[1]

Violence is real. Jesus died in an act of violence. And in light of the resurrection, the church had to think about the violence. First Peter is one response, a partial response, to some of the first century thinking about the violent death of Jesus. Perhaps it’s best focused by the second comment of the little boy who went into the church for the first time: “What did he do wrong?”

The answer – you know the answer – is Jesus did nothing wrong. In fact, he suffered because he did everything right. He came with healing in his touch and was confronted by illness of body and spirit. He came speaking peace on his tongue and was met with hatred. He came with kindness in his heart and was subjected to cruelty. He came with forgiveness in his spirit and was attacked by evil. He acted graciously, in accordance with the grace of God, and that is what got him killed.

Welcome to a world that rejects the God who made the world and loves. That’s one good reason why Jesus is on the cross.   

In chapter three of Peter’s first letter, we hear that, just because we belong to God in Christ, it doesn’t mean we are exempt from the same things that happened to Christ. In fact, we should not be surprised if the world that rejected Jesus should also reject us. We should expect the world to slap us because it slapped Jesus first.

Peter sprinkles the passage with one-liners of encouragement:

·         If you suffer for doing what it right, you are blessed

·         Do not fear what the world fears, and do not be intimidated

·         Give an account of the hope that is in your heart

·         Keep a clear conscience, so when you’re maligned, your abusers will be shamed

·         If, by God’s will, you suffer for doing good, that is far better than suffering for doing evil.

Above all, says the writer, remember Jesus. Look to Jesus. He did nothing wrong – the righteous man was killed by the unrighteous, which is to say Jesus suffered because of our sins. What did in Jesus? All the murderous tendencies of the world. For centuries, God tried to steer us, correct us, teach us, coach us – and it didn’t do any good. That’s why Jesus died.

Peter says, “If the world is beating you up for being a Christian, remember the world first beat up your Christ.” And if you are having a really bad day, remember Jesus had a really Bad Friday.

I think it’s helpful to remember how nasty the world can be. Certainly, we are capable of making our own messes – that’s for sure. Left to our own devices, it’s amazing how much trouble we can find. One thing about being in the suburbs, we are so sneaky about it. There’s a lot more money, influence, and weight to throw around. And none of it makes anybody’s life any better. We just think it does, and that is part of sin’s delusion.

And if you try to live a good life, the world will come back swinging. No good deed goes unpunished. Simply know this in advance, says Peter. Remember how the world treated Jesus.

But let’s keep thinking on Jesus. He comes to earth, and that means he is vulnerable: subject to limitations of time, restricted to wherever he happens to be, limited in his power to how he is received by others. For God to come to Earth in Jesus means that God chose to be vulnerable.

Do we realize what this means? In choosing to be vulnerable, to be completely with us in every way, God chooses to accept and receive us as we are. If we are savage and violent, God decides the abysmal quality of our character is not a deal-breaker for his relationship to us. If we are weak and broken-hearted, God comes alongside us to share and what it means to be human. If we are indifferent, God is still there, waiting us out.

I think this is why Peter can say, “Christ died in order to bring us to God.” Jesus brings us alongside God in every way. That is good news and it resonates most deeply with those who have a pack of troubles of their own. Nothing will separate them from God anymore, not their sin, not their weakness, not their pain and grief.

Where there was division, there is union. Where there was estrangement, there is forgiveness. Where our spirits are fractured, and our bones broken, there is healing. The promise of the Gospel is that Jesus brings us to God.

For here is the thing to remember: his death counted for something. Not only his good life, but his good death. Something happened in the heart of God when Jesus was crucified. Peter does not spell out. He hints at it in a few ways – the righteous died for the unrighteous, Jesus suffered once for all. Somehow the brutal violence of the cross cancelled the power of violence. God decides to cancel the punishment we deserve, decides to release it, forgive it, let it go. He looks at the perfect, sinless Christ and how he is rejected. Then God says, “That’s it. I’ve had it. No more am I going to allow human sin affect my love for my own world!”

That’s the miracle of the Gospel. Somewhere in the heart of God, sin is cancelled. Forgiveness is declared. God declares a definitive word on the world’s abuse – the cross of Jesus is to be the conclusion of it all. Cancelled, forgiven, reconciled - period. It is finished.

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

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[1] Read the horrible report at http://bit.ly/2o7VulX

Chiaroscuro Grace

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Transfiguration / Mardi Gras

February 11, 2018

William G. Carter 

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Here are the actual minutes from a church council meeting in the Catskills:

“The meeting was opened with prayer at 6:07 p.m. The meeting opened with the lighting of the Christ candle as a reminder of the God who leads, guides, challenges, and supports us. The council attempted to light on fire a battery-powered candle. Then, when that didn’t work, they lit a real candle.”[1]

File that away under “You Can’t Make This Up.” They tried to ignite a battery-powered candle.

I know what I like about that little story. It reminds us how anybody, even the folks in a church, can miss the light. The opportunity might be right in front of them and they still miss it. Call them clueless, I suppose, or unobservant, or preoccupied with something else – but they cannot see the light.

In the brief passage we heard a minute ago, the apostle Paul says something else is going on. People can be “blinded,” he says. He’s talking about people who can otherwise count their fingers and discern different colors, but there’s something that keeps them from seeing the difference between a battery-powered plastic candle and a real candle made of wax with a wick.

More to the point, they can’t see the Gospel, even though its right in front of them.

Now, I’m sure when some Christian-kind-of-people hear this text, they blanch a little bit, because for them, the Gospel is really obvious. It’s clear, it’s out there for everybody to see and hear. If you’ve ever driven through South Carolina, seen all the Bible billboards, the message is out there for everybody to see: Jesus died for our sins, we are forgiven, that’s that. Just put it out there and everybody will understand.

But that doesn’t always work. Back in the day when my parents drove us around in a paneled station wagon, sometimes we passed a big neon sign. In big red letter, the sign declared, “Jesus saves!” I thought it was a bank. I couldn’t see the smaller words beneath (“Park Avenue Baptist Church”). And I was too young to know any better.

These days, I would add that, just because you put up a sign, it doesn’t mean the sign will transform anybody’s life. The message must always have a messenger.

In recent years, a number of news channels have gone looking for a Christian representative to give a perspective on the issues of the day, kind of their token commentator, kept on a retainer fee. I don’t know where they find these people. They don’t sound very Christian to me – spewing hatred, division, exclusion, and doing so in an arrogant way – they don’t sound like Jesus at all.

The Gospel needs something more than a messenger; There needs to be some consistency with the message.

I lived out in Newton Township for nine years, right along the Newton Ransom Boulevard. A few minutes before 5:00 on a Saturday afternoon, it became Newton Ransom Speedway. I had to keep the cats indoors. It dawned on me that the heavy traffic coincided with conclusion of mass at Saint Benedict’s church. So I mentioned it to the priest, a larger than life character with an enormous laugh.

Msr. Bendick said, “Ahh, it's the mass right before everybody goes out to dinner. Do you know how that mass concludes? I say, ‘The mass is over, go in peace,’ and the people respond, ‘get the heck out of my way.’ And to think that all the spiritual benefits of that mass were quickly lost on those who competed to be first out of the church, first out of the parking lot, first back in town.”

Go in peace, get out of my way. I used to hear some of them honk their horns.

After Paul left the Corinthian Church, a church he started, some of the people there were blowing their horns. They were calling attention to themselves and making a lot of noise. The new leaders thought the first thing to do was to put down the leaders who came before them. “Paul didn’t know a lot,” they said. “He wasn’t very good,” they said. “He had a lot of flaws, he didn’t have a lot of sermons, he made a lot of mistakes.”

Apparently they attempted to prove their superiority, putting on a good show, declaring a few miracles, trying to pack the house so they could impress one another. In this letter, Paul refers to them as “super apostles.” It’s sarcastic, like calling them “super duper apostles.” He calls them “boasters” and “braggarts,” only interested in proclaiming themselves.

And in their lack of integrity, they were the exact opposite of Jesus, who comes humbly, who calls no attention to himself, who gives himself freely to those in need. As Paul will say a little later in this letter, “For such boasters are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness.” (2 Cor. 11:13-15)

In other words, when it comes to being a Christian, it is possible to fake it. Say the right words, but the heart is evil. Say the wrong words but declare yourself the authority. Try to light the plastic candle. Go in peace, get out of my way.

What is interesting to me is not that Paul calls out the hypocrisy. God knows, there is plenty of hypocrisy! No, what interests me is there is something about the character of the Gospel that can be hidden in the shadows. That the Good News is not obvious to everybody. That it takes some work, even some discipline to tease it out.

We know this to be true. The simplest essence of the Gospel is that ‘God loves us even though we do not deserve it.’ That’s the simplest expression of God’s grace. Yet there are a lot of people who do not believe they are worthy of any love. There are others who believe they have to work hard to earn any love. And then there are others who believe they deserve the love – but nobody else does. Each is a spiritual misfire of the Gospel truth, that ‘God loves us even though we do not deserve it.’

Where do the distortions come from?  In his letter, the apostle uses a phrase that he never uses anywhere else. He says, “The god of this world has blinded their minds… to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ.”  The “god of this world” – wait a second, Paul is a Jew. He only believes in one God, the God who made this world, the God who loves us, the God who sends Jesus to save and salvage us. Yes, there’s only one God.

Yet the world seems to distort everything. If the world shrugs off God, it starts to create a false reality and start lying to us. It’s the world that says there’s nothing lovable about us, that all our best efforts come to naught, that truth is merely another word for opinion. And then come all the other lies, that might makes right, that some are superior to others, that the poor and the weak exist only to be plundered, that if only you keep yelling loudly enough everybody will eventually agree with you. In such a world, what is real? Might as well grab what you can.

Well, contrary to all of that, let me tell you what is real: light is real.

Years ago, I met a lady in a church in Philadelphia. She was the clerk of session, and she spoke in a heavy European accent. At the coffee pot, she said her name was Ilse – beautiful name. “I’m German,” she said.

When she was a small child in Dresden, her city was bombed in the war. She and her family hid in the basement. Her mother said, “Don’t be afraid. God will make a way for us to survive.” When the bombs quieted her father and uncle pushed up through the rubble. Suddenly a shaft of light shone into the basement from above. “Ever since,” Ilse said, “I have associated God with light.” She paused, wiped away a tear, and said, “That’s why I believe.”

The apostle Paul knows what you and I know: there is light, but the light is not always obvious. It may be hidden in the shadows. And that’s why there’s an unusual word in the sermon title. It’s pronounced “key-arrow-scuro.” I learned from a jazz record company, a company that now belongs to our local public radio station. If you tune in after 10:00 p.m. on weeknights, you hear the “Chiaroscuro Jazz station” on WVIA.

The name comes from the world of art. It has to do with the interplay of light and shadows. If you look at Rembrandt, for instance, you see how he shines the light on what he wants you to see, but there is always something going on in the shadows.

That’s why Andy Sordoni and Hank O’Neal called their record label “Chiaroscuro Records.” There were a lot of jazz musicians, wonderful musicians, who were hiding in the shadows. Many were not widely known. They were extraordinary artists, but nobody knew about them, so Andy and Hank said, “We have to bring them out of the shadows.” Chiaroscuro.

The grace of God is like that. It is bright light, the brightest light – but it is not obvious to all.

Imagine what it would be like to live in complete light – a thousand two-hundred watt bulbs bathing you. Nothing would be hidden. There would be no secrets. All would be known. All would be forgiven. All would be completely known without any embarrassment or shame. And the warmth of that light would feel a lot like love. Surrounded in light, we could live in complete acceptance, feet flat on the floor, with no need to impress, flaunt, or deceive. Everything would be real.

So why don’t we live like that? Maybe because the world and all of its shadows have tried to convince us that’s all there is. But should the bombing stop and the rubble be removed, the shaft of light is still there…because it’s real. The grace and love of God are real. The glory of God on the face of Jesus is real. We can live in that light. And if we live in it, we can shine it all around.

That’s why we are here, you know. To encourage one another and live in the light. And that’s why we make  joyful music in the dead of winter – to declare the long shadows of winter are not going to win. The light has come. The light has broken through. And for our part, we shine that light everywhere we go.

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

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[1] Minutes, Woodstock Reformed Church Consistory Meeting, 10/03/201

An Obligation is Laid Upon Me

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

5^th Ordinary

February 4, 2018

William G. Carter

If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

I want to tell you a story about my friend Virginia. When she was growing up, she didn’t like football. She never wanted to go to a high school game, even though it was the only thing on a Friday night in the small town where she grew up. But she was in the marching band, so she had to go. She played her horn in the bleachers, talked to her friends, and ate a slice of cold pizza while the game was going on. She couldn’t care less about football.

She went to a college that didn’t have a football team. They had a library, with actual books. She took classes and got good grades. There was no distraction from a stadium, no parking problems, no overpriced tickets, no rah-rah-rah. Her college career had no football, and she was alright with that.

The same can be said of the graduate school she attended, which was the same school I attended. I played on an intramural team. My friends tossed the ball around on the green space on the center of the campus, until the campus security guard said, “Get off the field; it’s not for sports.” Virginia probably smirked at that. For her, football was an unnecessary distraction from real life.

Did I mention that she never liked football? In fact, someone once asked about her favorite team. Without much thought, she said, “The Chicago Bears.” Why the Bears? “Well, they are far from home,” she said, “they don’t win a lot of games, so they won’t require a lot of my energy.”

We graduated from school. Both of us were ordained as ministers. She went her way, I went mine. I started out in the Lehigh Valley, and she went to a town called Peckville. Within minutes of her landing there, the phone rang. She was invited to give the opening prayer at the annual football banquet for the Valley View Cougars. “The priests were all busy,” she said, “so they called the new kid on the block.”

That was thirty-four years ago. And in most of the years since, she has gone back to offer the prayer.

She is not able to come over to my house this afternoon to eat chicken wings and enjoy the Super Bowl. But I have noticed that football has grown on her, without compromising any of her values. You see, she’s kind of sneaky. She slips in a little Gospel whenever she prays. For instance, she might pray, “Almighty God, even though we live in a world of fierce competition, you embrace equally the losers and the winners. We thank you, Lord, that we don't need to be champions to be saved by your love.” That's the kind of prayer that she prays, and every year they keep inviting her back.

Given what I have told you about her, you might wonder: why did she keep going to the Valley View football banquets? (Go ahead: ask!) Virginia said, “That’s where the people are; and if I have an opportunity to be with them and share the Good News, then that’s where I need to go.”

It’s an interesting little parable.

Years ago, we had a wonderful man who moved to our region. He came from one of the turnpike exits in New Jersey and landed in a county seat town, not far from here. It was an awkward fit. The people didn’t take to him very well.

A few friends went to check on him, and see if they could help. One of them said, “What do you do on Friday nights?” He said, “That’s our night to stay home, read a book, watch a couple of cop shows on TV.” The friend said, “Ever think about going to a high school football game? Everybody in town is there.” And he replied, “Why would I want to do that?” He didn’t last very long, and it had nothing to do with football.

That’s a similar, but very different, little parable.

So the critics and the cranks in Corinth were going after the apostle Paul. They didn’t care that he started their little church. They didn’t care that he had moved on to another place. They found plenty to pick at him: he wasn’t tall and good looking, he had a squeaky voice. He didn’t do a lot of miracles, didn’t move a lot of mountains, didn’t pack the church with more and more people every week.

In fact, they said, he had only one sermon and kept preaching it over and over again. “You’re right about that,” he said, “I preach Christ crucified; that’s all I ever preach. The cross is the power of God.” So they criticized him some more.

Here in chapter 9, he defends himself. "I am not bound by anybody's opinions or expectations," he says. “Neither am I bound by anybody's money. I am free. My preaching does not depend on what people think of me. My ministry does not depend on conning people out of their hard-earned wages. No, what matters most is what God has done for the world in Jesus Christ. That there is Good News from God which comes free of charge.”

“So,” he says, “I will speak of the saving love of Jesus Christ wherever I can. In feast and famine. In places of comfort and places of hostility. I will go and preach anywhere, and I will talk to anybody, because I am free. The Gospel of Christ has set me free from my own neediness, my own brokenness. The love of God is sufficient for me to make it available to as many people as I can."

Do you know why churches stop growing? It’s because the people in the church stop thinking they have any good news to offer to anybody else. It is possible to grow insulated, to surround yourself with people just like you, to withdraw into your own little cocoon, to pull back from the world, to not even know the names of the people who move in next door.

A few years ago, I met a man named Phil Tom. He was the guy that the Presbyterian churches called when they said they wanted to reach out and bring more people into their building. Phil would set up an appointment with the church leaders, say on a Thursday night at 7:00. He would arrive at 5:00, park the car, and walk around the neighborhood.

At 7:00, the folks would show up. These were tired Presbyterians. They would drag themselves into the church, plop down in their favorite chairs, and say, “Phil, what can you do for us to bring more people into our church?”

He would ask, “Whom are you missing?” They would say, “We don’t have any young families.” Phil would say, “Really?” “Yes,” came the reply, “There are no young families around here.”

Phil pulled out a pad of paper and said, “Is that so? Did you know that within a three block radius of this church building, I counted fifteen homes with swing sets, five play houses and seven soccer balls in back yards, eight bicycles, to say nothing of some kids riding skateboards or shooting basketballs.”

One tired Presbyterian said, “But none of those people come to our church.” Phil smiled and said, “What are their names?” “We don’t know their names. In fact, most of us drive when we come to church.”

Oh, said Phil, “So you don’t have a relationship with the people with kids who live within three blocks of your church building?” Another tired Presbyterian said, “But they don’t come to our church.”

And Phil smiled and said, “Why don’t you go to them? Why don’t you knock on the door, say hello, take a fresh baked loaf of bread, learn who they are, and begin a friendship? Maybe you could find out if your church could offer to meet their needs in some way.” Many times, most of the time, Phil said that was the end of the conversation. “I move we adjourn.”

Do you know why churches stop growing? It happens when the people in the church stop thinking they have any good news to offer to anybody else. They would prefer to drive past their neighbors, go inside the building and hide for an hour, and drive past their neighbors to go home.

But not so with the apostle Paul. “An obligation is laid upon me,” he said. “It is a necessity.” The Greek word is “anagke” -- necessity – the sense is, “God has opened my heart with the riches of divine mercy, and I simply must share that mercy with everybody I can. It is my necessity.”

Paul’s play for outreach goes like this: “I will take them seriously, as they are. If they are Jews, I will speak as a Jew. If they are Gentiles, I will speak as a Gentile. If they are Patriots fans, I will use a Boston accent (“Park the car in Harvard yard”). If they are Eagles fans, I will say, 'Hey youse guys' and eat a pretzel with mustard.”

“And even if I can’t stand football, I will go to the high school football banquet and offer a prayer, because that’s where the people are.”

So I think about these things, on a day when we celebrate the life and work of our congregation, and I ask, “Who will be the next people that we can befriend on behalf of Jesus?” And I think about these things, as we gather around the Lord’s Table. A table is a community piece of furniture. There is grace and mercy for all. There’s room here for everyone.

And if they are not here, we need to take it to them. The obligation is laid upon us all, and that obligation is God’s blessing.

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