The Church That Christ Chooses

The Church That Christ Chooses

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

October 1, 2017

FPUC Owego Bicentennial

William G. Carter

(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 time I come into this building, I am overwhelmed with memories. This is a room full of people I love, some of them living, some of them dead and cheering us on from the bleachers of heaven. I can’t come into this room without hearing my father sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy” in a voice so low that it could crack concrete. He sang it loudly because the church taught him to believe the words.

It was here that Sheldon Seibel presented my third grade Bible which I read during all the sermons I couldn’t understand. It was here that the Holy Spirit brought faith alive in my heart and mind, and here where faith was confirmed three times by prayer and the laying on of hands: first at my confirmation, then at my ordination as a teenage deacon, and 32 years ago this weekend as a minister of Word and Sacrament.

It was here that a pastor’s son and I made paper airplanes out of worship bulletins and dropped them from the balcony “accidentally on purpose.” It was here a youth minister told us that behind all those marble tablets on the walls are the earthly remains of those they name. And it was here that I was asked to play the piano in God’s sanctuary for the first time. It was Christmas Eve, the song was “Silent Night,” and nobody told me in advance that they would turn out the lights. Nobody gave me a candle!

It was here that I came to learn and love the Bible. I learned a lot of texts that stick with me. The 23^rd Psalm, the Beatitudes, and the Lord’s Prayer earned me that third grade Bible. Words like “Let not your hearts be troubled” and “Rejoice in the Lord always” give confidence to my soul. “Enter his courts with thanksgiving” remind me how John Calvin says the primary virtue is gratitude, a virtue far above my head. The Holy Spirit brings the Bible alive in this room.

But as much as I learned, 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 tribes 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 how he would be crucified in Jerusalem, and the twelve 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. And in many congregations, women actually run the place.

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 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 foreign soldiers who occupied their town.

Standing next to Matthew 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 Al Sharpton handing the matzoh to Pat Robertson to the same Passover Seder. Or seating Mitch McConnell and Elizabeth Warren 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.

Think of how remarkable that is, that the grace of Jesus Christ would transcend human opinions and divisions!

In the year 1849, a thirteen year old boy sat in these pews. His name was Washington Gladden. He grew up to become a nationally known preacher and writer, so famous that they named my elementary school after him. In 1849, he worshiped here every week, twice a Sunday, with morning and evening worship services.

According to his autobiography, it didn’t always go well. As he wrote, “I will not deny that those sermons were often a weariness of the flesh. A keen theological argument would have been interesting, but it was largely a restatement of platitudes; it hardly ever touched life in the remotest way.”[3] Obviously those were the days before John Mahler.

One Sunday in 1849, the minister stood in this pulpit and prayed for African American slaves. There was a furious outcry from a lot of the members, all of them white: “How dare he do that?” Then there was another outcry from another group of church members, who disagreed with the first group and approved of the minister’s prayer. Sounds just like church, doesn’t it?

The split became so vicious that the second group, including Gladden and his family, moved down the block to create the Congregational church. These were all Christians, with different views.

And it wasn’t until 1912, probably for reasons both theological and economical, that the two competing congregations reunited. Washington Gladden, now retired and living in the area, helped to broker that reunion. Decades after the Civil War, the Christians got over themselves and reaffirmed that they belonged together.

That latter moment provides the photograph of the true Gospel. Diverse, young, old, male as well as female, whoever, wherever, however. There is no unanimity in the group, but there is harmony as Christ calls us to sing together. That’s the World Communion truth and the point of it all. Standing at the center of this new community is Jesus. He is what they hold in common.

Look at the list. 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? I love my brother; we agree on a lot of things, but not everything.

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 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 into a community called “Church” – and that he is giving you work to do.

That brings us 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 is 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.[4]

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 ordinary people his power. He equips them to work together, to make a difference for God and humanity.

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

From this we can extract all kinds of ideas. Here’s one: in Christ’s diverse community called “church,” you might not get your way all the time. You might not get your way at all. Instead you are called to 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!”

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 Jesus’ 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 won’t be 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, and he probably is.

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 Jesus can love us, he can love everybody. It's our job to say so - and to love them on his behalf.

Happy birthday, church of God! Let’s proclaim God’s love and get on with our work.

© 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] Washington Gladden, Recollections (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1909) p. 33.

[4] Mark 1:14-15

Do You Have Enough Faith?

Matthew 17:14-23

September 10, 2017

William G. Carter

When they came to the crowd, a man came to Jesus, knelt before him, and said, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.’ Jesus answered, ‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.’ And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’

 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.’ And they were greatly distressed.

The TV preacher looked at the weather map and was not the least bit discouraged. Then he looked back at the camera and said, “If we pray hard enough, God will send the hurricane out to sea and it will never touch us. We just have to have enough faith.”

Tell me friends, do you have that kind of faith?

There's another preacher down in Houston who has been quite successful at telling people to have more faith. “If you have faith,” he says, “God will make you successful too.” That’s his message. Then he extends his arms toward an arena that seats 16,000 people, all of them hungry for riches, success, happy children, and recordings and books of his sermons which are conveniently available in the church’s bookstore.

As one of my teachers used to say, “Every preacher has only one sermon that they keep preaching over and over again. They may use different Bible texts but there's only one sermon that they speak.” You think that's true? It's true for the preacher down in Houston. “If only you have enough faith, God will enrich your life and make it better.”

But maybe you saw the news as I did. When the first big whopping hurricane hit Houston, that success preacher was slow to respond in reaching out to people who were homeless or flooded. And then he kept changing his story to avoid the awkwardness what he has said repeatedly over the years, that if you have enough faith, God will make your life turn out well.

So this was on my mind as I worked with the Bible text from today. A father is concerned about his son. The boy has a severe case of epilepsy and it is harming his life. Now, that’s a first century family. They didn’t know what to do. They heard about Jesus, but for some reason they didn’t go directly to him. They went to his disciples – and the disciples could not cure him.

But then Jesus comes to town, so the father rushes toward, falls to his knees, and spills out the whole story. Jesus responds in a grumpy way: “How much longer must I put up with you people?” Take note. We don’t know if he’s talking about the man, his family, the townspeople, the world at large, or just the disciples. He doesn’t specify.

Yet this is the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel, the One with great authority and power, the One who heals “everybody.” So he calls the boy toward, casts out the illness (which is personified as a hostile force), and the boy is healed instantly. End of story.

Well, not so fast. The disciples pull aside their Lord to ask, “How come we can’t do that?” And the episode becomes a teaching session about faith. “You don’t have enough faith,” he says. “In fact, if you had faith that size of that little, bitty mustard seed that I keep talking about, you could move mountains.”

Now, as you know, that’s the verse, the single verse, that all the smiling TV preachers latch onto. And it’s true. Jesus said it. It’s in the book. There are other verses in the book that sound like this one. Gives the impression that anybody with enough faith can pray away a storm, or at least have their best life now!

Just one thing to remember: there are other verses in the book too. In fact, in the very next verse, we hear Jesus saying he is going to the cross.

Do you hear the paradox of that? The man who can heal everybody is going to be betrayed, condemned, and killed. The Lord with great power and complete authority will be crucified. The One who chastises his own dear ones for not having enough faith is going to suffer on the cross. How do we hold that together?

It’s difficult, especially if you subscribe to those people who insist that faith makes you successful.

Years ago, Robert Schuller, bless his heart, spoke at the chapel of Princeton Seminary. The room was packed to hear that cheerful can-do preacher speak about his beliefs. After he spoke, there was a question-and-answer period. One of the theology professors raised his hand, and Dr. Schuller called upon him. “Tell us, Dr. Schuller, what you believe about the crucifixion.” Without blinking, the cheerful preacher said, “Like every successful person, Jesus had his share of setbacks.”

Across the chapel, there was a unanimous groan. If we read the Gospel of Matthew, the cross is more than a setback. The crucifixion of the Son of God is a rejection of God himself. It is a defiant response to a man who taught us to love one another, and then showed that love as he healed kids with epilepsy, fed the multitudes, and forgave the sinners. To put him on the cross is to declare, that regardless of whether or not we think he’s a good man, we don’t want him.

And it’s even more than that. Jesus knows the cross is the inevitable outcome of loving God in a world like this. Yet he goes willingly and does not waver. Do you know why that is? Because when he goes to the cross, it is a matter of faith – his faith. He trusts in God so completely he will risk his life to do the will of God.

Imagine what kind of faith you must have to risk your life. Imagine what kind of faith you must have to bear the sins of the world upon your shoulder. Imagine what kind of faith you must have to face destruction, indifference, cruelty, and total darkness. As the early church would say, “The world is saved through the faith of Jesus.”[1]

So the first thing the Bible story reminds us that we are not free to pick a favorite verse out of the text and isolate it from what's around it. Faith like a mustard seed that moves mountains and going to the cross are connected in Matthew’s mind. And looking to Jesus, I think we will see the connection. Faith is about being faithful. It’s not primarily about success; it’s about doing the right thing.

It’s the faithfulness of Jesus that saves the world from its brokenness. It’s his faithfulness that begins the world’s redemption. And it takes a good measure of maturity to be able to see that.

My friend Terry Chapman was in town last week. He's a pastor in New Jersey and has done some mission work in Africa. A few years ago, he visited a church where the sermon was titled, “Get God – Get Gold.”  The African preacher was wearing a white three-piece suit, and strutting around the stage to show off a big gold Rolex watch. “I got this,” he said, “because I got God. Why don’t you prove to me how much you want God?”  With that, the ushers came around with the offering buckets. People climbed over one another to fill them with everything they had.

You know, it’s almost enough to make you want to get your own show biz church. Almost.

Terry said, “It seems the more people suffer through tragedy or economic and political injustice, the more vulnerable they become to this thin veneer of illusory good news covering over a vast amount of fear and greed.”

So what do you think God wants from us? More faith, so we can improve our circumstances? Or more faithfulness to become more like Jesus?

As scholars reflect on the Gospel of Matthew, they see more than a biography about Jesus. They see the invitation to become his disciple. To study him. To imitate him. To do what he says, particularly when we see him doing it himself.

It starts as early as the Sermon on the Mount. “Love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you,” says the One who shows us what that looks like. Matthew’s Gospel is a manual of discipleship, a textbook for true faithfulness. Feed the multitude, give a cup of fresh water to the thirsty, heal the sick, visit the castaway, love those considered disposable, pay attention to the littlest ones, give money to the needy, and pray at all times. That’s faith – faith-full.

And we all need more of it, because the life of faithfulness is an invitation to bring every aspect of our lives under the obedience of a sovereign God. It matters to whom we bind our hearts, how we spent our money, and how we treat our parents. It matters that we belong to God before we bow down to the Emperor du jour.

Even in this Gospel of Matthew, which normally treats the disciples of Jesus with kid gloves, here we're reminded that the disciples were far from ever being complete. As good as they were, they did not have their act together sufficiently to heal as Jesus healed. What they needed was faith, more faith, more little-bitty-mustard-seed faith -- which I take to mean faithfulness.

In the long run, life doesn’t depend on how good we are, because we alone will never be quite good enough. Life depends on how good Christ is, how faithful he is in doing God’s mission to the world. And if he is that good and that faithful, we can trust him and live like him.

And that's what a church is all about. We invite people to follow Jesus. We can’t promise riches which rust, or big fat houses that are built on sand. But we can lovingly nudge one another to more faithfulness, more dedication, more commitment, more justice, and more love. That’s deep, soulful living, the life that really is life.

And there's a good word here, as we begin our fall program together. Whether it’s worship, whether it’s service, whether it’s singing, or especially if it’s Christian education, at the heart it’s the invitation to live the life of Christ. So let me encourage you to be part of what we’re trying to do here.

On Wednesday evenings around here, it’s discipleship night. We’ve had a great group of people coming to classes and choirs, and there is plenty of room for more. Our goal is to move from being observers to participants, to move from being like the disciples in our text who feel inadequate to serving God with dedication and joy.

That’s our continuing invitation, to help us all move from the prevailing whims of our culture to the God-centered life of service and praise. It is a journey to become faithful like Jesus.

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

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[1] Romans 3:22-26, Galatians 2:16

The Jazz of Beauty

Psalm 27:1-4

Revelation 21:9-14, 18-21

William G. Carter

September 3, 2017

Jazz Communion

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh— my adversaries and foes— they shall stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident. One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:1-4)

Thanks to Keith Jarrett, I had a true-blue spiritual experience when I was seventeen. It was a moment so extraordinary than I don’t talk about it much, lest I cheapen it by overexposure. No, the experience was a gift, a gift that I now understand as a moment from God’s Spirit.

It was around the Thanksgiving holiday as I recall. I was in one of my recurring adolescent moods, and had retreated to my bedroom and shut the door. I don’t know if I had too much of my family or if I was simply in a foul funk. For some reason, I turned on the stereo, put on a set of headphones, stretched out on my bed, and listened to a brand new recording.

The album was called “Arbour Zena,” and I found it in the jazz section of a store at the local mall. It didn’t sound like jazz, not at first. A German chamber orchestra plays a suite of three Jarrett compositions. Keith, bassist Charlie Haden, and Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek improvise through the pieces. The notes swirl upward. Pretty soon, I was swirling upward too.

I had never had an experience like that. It was like I was lifted off the bed, floating three feet into the air. The music absorbed me. Time slipped away. For the moment there was perfect peace. Conscious thought ceased. It was as if I was held in greater hands and I didn’t want it to end. When the music concluded, I was back on the bed, perfectly still, with no need to do anything.

Pretty soon, I was seventeen again. But I have never forgotten the experience or its profound effect on me. One of the few times before now that I ever talked about it, I was at a complete loss for words to describe it. But the one word that lingered, the word I would use to describe it, is “beauty.” Complete, sublime beauty.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a moment like that. I suspect you have. If so, I suspect you have done what I have done: shake it off, dismiss it, and attempt to explain it away. Like Ebenezer Scrooge trying to explain away the appearance of Marley’s ghost: “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato.”

That moment for me, after all, came after Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe I had eaten too much pie. Or the turkey was pushing me toward the zone between wakefulness or sleep.

But as I’ve talked with musicians, photographers, poets, writers, painters, architects, hikers and bikers, I’ve decided not to dismiss the experience or reduce it somehow. For one thing, it was real. It was very real. For another thing, I’ve had more moments like that throughout my adult life. And each one has lifted me of the spiritual presence of beauty.

We don’t talk about beauty very much, either in church or out of church. Why do you suppose that is? Maybe it’s the same reason that Presbyterians don’t talk much about spiritual experiences. They lie outside our comfort zone. For the benefit of our visitors, Presbyterians are hard-working, rational types. Nuts and bolts are our currency. That’s why our sanctuaries are rather plain and our worship is pretty tame. Yet the moments of beauty still come, don’t they? Maybe it’s the song that makes our saxophonist cry.

“Beauty” is a word that doesn’t appear in the Bible very much. That’s telling, in all kinds of ways. Sometimes the word is translated as “pleasantness.” Beauty is what creates an experience of pleasure. You see something, hear something, smell something, and go “Ahh.”

The most famous of those occurrences is a verse from the Psalm that we heard. The poet wishes to be in the constant presence of God, or as he puts it, “to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” That’s more than spending all your time in a church, which might not be all that beautiful if you think about it. No, it’s bigger. It’s living in the presence of the Creator, of dwelling with the One who is the Source and Destination of all life. The Psalmist calls this “to behold the beauty of the Lord.”

Now this is not mere escapism, what Marx called “the opium of the masses.” And it’s more than mere optimism, although a positive attitude does tend to improve our lives and make us more pleasant to be around. The Psalm is pointing beyond escapism and optimism to the ultimate reality at the heart of all things. Fact of the matter is, Psalm 27 mentions evildoers, opposing armies, and devoured flesh – but points through them to the beauty at the heart of God’s creativity.

And that’s the truth of the text from the book of Revelation. In the concluding pages of the Bible, the prophet John sees a New Jerusalem coming down here. We don’t fly up to heaven, it seems, heaven comes down here and it stays. John strains to speak language that touches the vision, much less describe it. The new city is enormous. The streets are paved with gold. The pearly gates are always open (if you think about it, that’s good news!).

Then we hear the city’s foundations are twelve huge precious stones. Here’s a curious thing about those jewels: some of them are known to us (emerald, topaz, amethyst) and some not so much (chrysolite, jacinth, chrysoprase). The prophet doesn’t even have the words to describe how beautiful they are. They are beyond him, in every way. But they are real.

And the even more curious thing, if you know the book of Revelation, is that you have to wade through twenty chapters of pain, war, destruction, and desolation before anybody can see the totality of the beauty. Along the way, you might catch a glimpse of the beauty. Maybe you might hear a song or see a vision and it’s enough to keep you going. When these moments come, they are gifts, because most of the time, life has its challenges.

Try telling the people of Houston that the world is a beautiful place. This week, they might beg to differ. The scenes after that storm and all the rain are heartbreaking. But in the middle of all that destruction, there are glimpses of beauty, particularly of people helping one another, or brief rainbows pointing beyond themselves.

I recall after 9-11 hit. As the shock subsided, all kinds of help was offered and given. One of my favorite stories was about the musicians who appeared at St. Paul’s chapel in lower Manhattan, which functioned as a rescue center. They pulled out their instruments and started playing chamber music, because they wanted to declare to the world there is more to life than all the pain. It was a holy moment, a beautiful moment.

So we thank God for the artists, photographers, musicians, and all others who point to something so beautiful that they can’t even describe it. And we pray for God to set us free from all that restrains us from what the Psalmist calls “the beauty of holiness.”

When Keith Jarrett presented the National Endowment of the Arts award as a jazz master, here’s something he said:

"Music is not something you can use words to describe. Music is either in the air and you find it, or it is in the air and you don't find it, but you just don't try hard enough. You can be educated to play the piano, you can be educated about chords, you can be educated about scales, you can be educated about everything there is you do with music, and you are still zero until you let go of what holds you back. And all of us could possibly not be held back, but most of us don't let it happen. My job, in my opinion, is to let it out.[1]

I heard him let it out one time. He was playing a concert at the theater across the street from my graduate school. So I paid a lot of money to take a date and hear the concert. I should have warned her. At that time, the pianist would come out on stage and improvise at the piano for an hour and a half. Jarrett got to be quite famous for this, traveling around the world to improvise the concerts.

The problem is sometimes he had a good night . . . and sometimes the music was way over anybody’s head, including his own. The guy can play. He’s an extraordinary musician. That night, he left us in the dust. My date kept looking at her watch. She went to the rest room during the intermission and I wasn’t sure she would come back. When she returned, she said, “Is the second half going to be as long?” We had just survived an hour of thunder. The second half forty-five minutes of the same.

To our amazement, the room exploded in applause when he finished. Maybe everybody was grateful. But then the crowd stood up, and I wondered if perhaps we were the only people who didn’t have a clue what we had just heard. It felt like our ears had been assaulted.

Keith Jarrett came out, acknowledged the applause, and then moved toward the piano. My girlfriend groaned. He sat down, cleared his head for a moment. Then he played, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It was incredible. Simple, heartfelt, accessible, available beauty. The encore was only a few minutes long. And when he was done, there was complete silence in the hall. Nobody dared to disrupt the moment.

It was then that I first prayed the prayer that I have prayed every time since, whenever I have found myself in the presence of profound, indescribable beauty: “Lord, let it happen again.”

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

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDbOKHOuy9M

Wherever the Messiah Is

Matthew 16:13-23

August 27, 2017

William G. Carter

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

If you were ever a little kid, did you have a favorite super hero? You know, the kind that you could read about in the comic books.

Batman was pretty cool, sticking to the shadows of night but full of ingenuity and agility. And he had all those nifty gadgets in his utility belt! Or there was The Flash, who could run faster than the speed of light. Or the Incredible Hulk with his radioactive strength. Of course, the favorite for a lot of us was Superman. Faster than a speeding locomotive, he could leap tall buildings in a single bound and catch bullets in his hand.

I was like most little kids. I spent a lot of time daydreaming about those super powers. If only we could have some special ability that would make us stand out or lift us above the pack. A lot of kids dream about that.

One of my daughters was enchanted by Harry Potter. When she was little, she would have loved to wave the magic wand to change back the clock, alter nature, cast a spell, clean her bedroom, or direct some zombies to do her math homework. Unfortunately she didn’t have the power. No super powers.

When you’re a kid, part of the appeal is the possibility of transcending your circumstances. If only you had that super power, you could say to the wind, “Be still,” and it would be still. You could say to the stones, “Become bread,” and there would be plenty of food for the multitude to eat. Why, I suppose you could even walk on water!

No wonder, then, that a kid like me could hear the stories of Jesus and be drawn to him. The Bible stories about Jesus revealed someone of great power and authority. That’s the Gospel of Mathew’s favorite word: “authority.” Three different times, Matthew says Jesus had the authority to heal every single sick person (4:23, 8:16, 9:35). Every one!

Jesus also had extraordinary power in his words. He could speak truth to the Pharisees and scribes, and make them quiver in their boots. He could speak mercy and restoration to the leper who had been cast out of town. He could speak forgiveness and healing to the one who was paralyzed.

Jesus was unusual. If you didn’t know better, you might think he can from the planet Krypton

So I can understand why Simon Peter has a hard time making sense out of him. Not only does Jesus have the power, but sometimes when he speaks, it sound like jibberish. Some of his words just don’t make sense. This man who seemed to have amazing power says to Peter, “I am going to the cross. I must give my life. I must hand over everything and sacrifice my life.” And Peter says, “That’s just crazy. It’s never going to happen to you. Not you, of all people.”

Jesus says, “Get behind me. You see things only from a human point of view, not a holy point of view.” You’re thinking from the perspective of a little kid who wishes he had super powers. You’re thinking that advancement is the key to all of life. You’re thinking beyond a first-century peasant who lives under constant occupation by a hostile military power. And it’s confusing. It’s extremely confusing.

It was confusing for many in that first circle of disciples. If Jesus is the Messiah, what is he doing on a cross? The Messiah was going to come and get rid of all the crosses. That’s what they believed. The Messiah would ride into town on a gleaming white horse. He wears a pure white robe, he is morally unstained, he stands taller and stronger than anybody we know.

And that means he will redeem Israel out of a thousand years of degradation. They have been kicked around by all the other nations, and the Messiah will make things right. He is going to restore the kingdom. He’s going to fix things that don’t work. He’s going to drive out the people from other nations. He’s going to make Israel great again! That’s what they wanted in a Messiah.

Whatever they needed, that’s what they wanted. Whatever they wanted, that’s what they expected. And why is Jesus talking about a cross?

No wonder most of them dwindled away after Jesus was arrested and condemned. He didn’t look strong and mighty. So much for all his super powers.

Yet here’s the crazy truth, the upside down truth: that Jesus is not only the Messiah, but that his “super power” is something called “kenosis.” That’s the New Testament word for it. “Kenosis” is the word from one of Paul’s letters. It means “to empty oneself,” to “lose oneself,” to “give one’s self away.” Jesus sets aside the glory that is rightfully his own and takes up the mantle of a servant.

This is hard for us to swallow, difficult to understand.

A number of years ago, my friend Jane was being examined by the presbytery as the final step before she could be ordained as a preacher. Some of you might have been there. The meeting was up at Camp Lackawanna. They asked her all kinds of questions. One old duffer, a minister well known for his grandstanding said, “Jane, tell us why Christianity is superior to all other religions.” (It tells you much more about the questioner than the one being questioned.)

Jane looked at him and asked him to repeat the question. “Jane, why is Christianity superior to all other religions?” That prompted me to think about it as well.

Now, Jane was good on her feet. Like a good rabbi, she questioned the question: “Why do you think we’re superior? What happens to others if we start declaring we are superior?”

Meanwhile, I was thinking how I would answer the question. And one answer seemed to come to me, as if a light went on. If I were to answer how Christian faith is superior to all other expressions of faith, I think I would say its superiority is in its humility. True Christian faith is shaped like Jesus, who set aside all the glory and took on the mantle of a servant, even to the point of death on a cross.

It’s hard to understand this. Jesus says the only way to understand it is through an experience of revelation, through an “a-ha moment” which comes as a gift from God’s Holy Spirit. That nobody can apprehend this truth unless the Spirit comes and breathes it anew, so that mind and heart can understand what is not obvious.  Otherwise it will not make any sense to those with any power or privilege.

And in those recurring moments through history when the church has been intoxicated with its own sense of power or privilege, it doesn’t understand – much less follow – the Christ who gives up everything for the life of the world.

For this is the truth at the heart of it all: once we used to say, “when the Messiah comes, there will be no more misery,” but now we affirm “wherever there is misery, there is the Messiah.”[1]

Try to let that sink in for a little bit, if you can. That’s the hidden truth at the heart of our faith. It’s not about being superior, but about becoming available. It’s not about being first, but humbly choosing to be last. It’s not about being right, but about being so completely humane that you shine like the sun in holiness.

Henri Nouwen wrote a book some years ago, based on a few talks about the move from setting aside all glory for the sake of becoming deeply human and thus holy. The title says it all: The Downward Mobility of Christ. It’s not about advancing, but emptying. It’s not about jangling the keys to the kingdom as if they are your accomplishment or your private possession, but rather about unlocking the prisoners and setting them free to experience the deep love of God . . . which is precisely what Jesus is all about.

And what would that look like, as a model for you or me? How might the followers of Jesus become more like him?

A woman who runs an after-school tutoring program was talking about her volunteers. It’s a pretty effective program. Kids stop by after school, before the parents pick them up after work. There’s a snack, and a few minutes of fun. As you would expect, the core of the program is a group of concerned volunteers.

She said they come in two kinds. The first group of volunteers has great concern for the kids. They exude expertise and years of experience. “Sit down, kids, and let me show you how it’s done. Let’s straighten out your nouns and verbs. Let’s make sure all your numbers add up. I will be the expert and tell you what to do.”

But the second group of volunteers, a much smaller group, takes a different approach. They don’t tell the kids to sit down; they go and sit with them. They learn their names. They never claim to be experts. They ask a lot of questions: where are you struggling? What don’t you understand? What would you like me to show you? Then they just sit there and listen. They set their pre-conceived agendas aside and let the kids do the talking.

“I’m grateful for all of my volunteers,” said the director, “but I’ve noticed that the second group is more effective over time. They come alongside the kids and try to understand the world as the kids experience it. They actually change the kids for the better.”

Simon Peter didn’t completely understand this. He knew Jesus was special, that he was different somehow. He saw the healings, the miracles, the astounding abilities. All he could perceive was the Lord’s power. But his insight went only halfway. What he didn’t yet understand is that the true power of the Christ (the super power, if you will) is his humility, his setting-aside the glory for the sake of serving others, his compassion, his willingness to come alongside us – and all others who need him.

Simon Peter figured out that the Messiah had come, and it was Jesus. The Spirit of God opened his mind just wide enough that he could perceive that. But he didn’t yet realize the whole truth of the Gospel: that the Messiah, the Christ, comes to us . . . not to fish us out of our humanity, but to inhabit it with us. For that is the promise that opens and concludes the Gospel of Matthew: Jesus is God-with-us always, even to the end of the age (1:23, 28:20).

   There is nowhere so dark that the light of Christ is not present.

   There is no place of suffering that the Messiah cannot enter.

   There is no cross that we carry that he has not carried already.

   There is no tomb so desolate and absent that Jesus will be shut out or shut in.

   He is with us. Always.

And this is the will of God, the divine gift, the Gospel truth that we are known and we are found because we are loved. That’s good news.

The Messiah is here, and it’s Jesus. And as someone has said, “The first task of a Messiah is to get people to stop looking for one.”[2]

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

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[1] Fred Craddock first said this so well, and so clearly. See his sermon “Hoping or Postponing,” originally recorded on the National Radio Pulpit in 1978.

[2] Thanks, Fred Craddock. Op. cit.

Treasure

Matthew 13:44-46

August 6, 2017

William G. Carter

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it."

We have been working through the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, a collection of parables that Jesus told. The best definition of a parable came from the British Bible scholar C. H. Dodd. You may wish to write this down:

“At its simplest, the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”

I think that’s a great definition. It reminds us that we are dealing with a literary form, a figure of speech. We hear the words “metaphor” and “simile” and we returned to that seventh grade English class when we weren’t paying attention when the teacher taught us about metaphors and similes. Those are comparisons, as in “the kingdom is like hidden treasure” or a “like a merchant search for fine pearls.”

And the parable, says Dodd, is vivid and strange. The meaning is not obvious which is precisely why Jesus told so many of them. He wants his listeners to work at it, to chew on it, to be teased (as Dodd says) “into active thought.”

As we have worked through the thirteenth chapter of Matthew over the last few weeks, we have heard some of the strangeness of the parables:

The kingdom is like a farmer who throws seed all over the place. Some of it takes root, some does not. He is sloppy, which is another word for generous, so he throws the seed everywhere he can. He is not cautious or calculating. That’s strange.

The kingdom is like a farmer who sows good seed in his own field. Somehow weeds appear in his favorite crop. When the servants suggest he purify the crop, he says, “No, let’s wait.” That’s strange. I wish I knew that parable when my parents sent me out to pull weeds out of the family garden.

The kingdom, says Jesus, is like a little bitty seed that grows so large that it takes over the whole field. We don’t expect the little one to become so large.

And as we heard last week, the kingdom is like a woman in the kitchen who works some yeast through a lump of flour. What’s odd about that? It is a sixty pound lump of flour! That’s a lot of flour.

So today we hear the kingdom of heaven is like a hidden treasure. What’s so strange about that? It seems pretty clear that a lot of people never find the treasure. It is out of sight. It is not obvious. It is not readily available for just anybody to saunter along and pick it up. No, the treasure is hidden. So what’s the vividness, the strangeness of this parable?

Simply this: it is found by a man who is trespassing. The man who finds it has stepped onto land that doesn’t belong to him. It is not his land, so it’s not his treasure. So, in a way, when he goes off to liquidate his assets and buy that field, he’s going after something that still doesn’t belong to him. It’s not quite ethical. He has to have that treasure.

Please notice what he does not do. He doesn’t find the treasure, stick it under his shirt, and slip away. That would be stealing. He is not interested in stealing it; rather, he wants to own this valuable thing, whatever it is.  And he is willing to give up everything else in order to possess it.

At the same time, take note of what he does do. After he finds the hidden treasure, he hides it again. He hides it really well, because he doesn’t want anybody else to have it. He found it and he just has to have it. So much so that he will cash in everything else he owns, just to get that treasure.

Now, once again, that’s strange. If he gives up everything he has, how’s he going to eat? Where is he going to live? How will he take care of his family?

I mean, it reminds me of the man who was happily married for a long time. He had a few kids, had a nice house, drove a nice car, and all his bills were paid. One day, he comes home at supper time and says, “You’re all going to have to go and live somewhere else.” Why? “Because I found a hidden treasure.”

What do you mean you found a hidden treasure? He says, “Well, I was poking around a used bookstore, and there on a dusty shelf, was a first-edition Gutenberg Bible. You know, the very first bible printed on a printing press. It’s in excellent shape. It has buried under a couple of comic books, near some old Reader’s Digest condensed books. It’s priceless. I couldn’t believe my good fortune!”

Well, says his wife, what did you do? He says, “I covered it up, and then meandered around the store so I wouldn’t look suspicious. After a while, I found the owner and said, “I’d like to buy this book store.”He looked up from his computer and said, ‘You would?’ And I said, ‘How much money would you like for the bookstore?” Without blinking he said, ‘A million dollars,’ so I said, ‘It’s a deal.”

His wife is looking at him like he has two heads. “You just bought a bookstore?” He said, “I have to put together the financing. But if I cash in my retirement savings, and sell the house and the car, and sell you and the kids into slavery, I think I can acquire that book by buying that bookstore.”

She said, “What are you going to do with that book? Will you resell it?” He says, “Oh no, I’m going to keep it.”

She said, “I’ve grown attached to living here. I think I’d like to stay.” He said, “Well, I simply have to have that book…”

Can you believe that? I can’t believe it. The story is so ridiculous, such a complete exaggeration. What’s so special that you would give up everything to get it?

Good question. The parable doesn’t say. It’s an open question where we must fill in the answer. What answer would you give?

To tell you the truth, I was sitting in a picnic bench in New Mexico last month, and somebody asked me a version of that question. We were eating enchiladas at a conference center. Evening was upon us. We finished our dinner, took a sip of coffee, and watched the hummingbirds flit around. And my host posed the question this way: “What is the one thing so special to you that you could never give it up?”  

I looked at my beautiful wife and she said, “Be careful what you say.” She’s a smart woman. But I said to her, “You married a guy who got a philosophy degree in college. I like questions like this.” Besides, the friend who asked the question is a retired geologist from NASA, so he was used to dealing with extremes. I mean, if you take it seriously, it’s really some question.

What’s the question again? “What is the one thing so special to you that you could never give it up?”

What prompted the question was a decision that my friend’s daughter had made. She was raised Presbyterian, but she converted to another faith when she fell in love and married.

So I thought about that: could I ever give up being a Presbyterian? I’ve been taking part in the church for 57 years. Is that the one thing I couldn’t give up? Well, I wouldn’t want to give it up, but the day will probably come when I retire, and there might not be a Presbyterian church wherever I go. And if I retire and stay here, it would not be neither fair nor helpful to keep worshiping here. I would inevitably step on my successor’s toes, so I’d have to worship somewhere else. That wouldn’t be the end of the world. If I had to give it up for the greater good, I would do so.

What is the one thing that I couldn’t give up? My friends? I love my friends, but friends have been coming in and out of my life since I was eight years old. I have a lot of long-term friends, but none of them are permanent.

Could I give up my family? I wouldn’t want to; I love them very much. But who knows how much time we will have together? It’s taken a long time to get the kids launched. We hope they stay launched. And I’m hopeful that I’ll have another thirty years with my wife. But who knows? It is a happy marriage, and fruitful in so many ways, but one day death will separate us. That’s just reality. And life will go on. Different, but it would go on.

Could I give up my relatively good health? I wouldn’t want to; I’m feeling pretty good these days. But when you’re a pastor, you know that one good slip on the ice could ruin your health. Illness an strike at any time. Weakness can surprise us. None of us are exempt from that. I think of my father, gone two years ago this July. Strong as an ox, tallest man in my world, and then his rational mind started to go, and there was a long, long slide to the end. Would I want to cling to my health, stay strong, and live forever? Truth be told, that’s not reasonable. Wisdom comes from numbering our days.

“So what is it?” he asked. What is the one thing you want more than anything else, the one treasure that you have to have, the one thing you would never give up?

I’ll tell you what it is for me. It’s Jesus. Because if I had to lose everything else, I’d want to know that I could lean on him. That I would land safely with him. That in spite of my imperfect faith and wayward inclination, he would still take me in

It’s like the passage where Paul writes to the church in Philippi. He loved those people, but he was separated from them. He loved his Christian freedom, but he was stuck in a prison cell. He had a tremendous family of faith, a righteous religious heritage, but that didn’t count for much when you live behind bars. So he writes to those good people in Philippi with words that will be read at my funeral some day. Listen:

I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things . . . in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own …but one that comes through faith in Christ.[1]

When all is said and done, when everything is cashed in, when we (quite literally) buy the farm, our hidden treasure is Jesus. He is the Christ, the Living One, the Life-Giving One. And he is at the center of all things, waiting to be found, waiting to take first place in everything.

Because there is nothing more important than him, nothing more important than his truth and his grace. So we seek him, and keep seeking, in the great promise that he has already found us.

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

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[1] Philippians 3:8-9