Wednesday June 20, 2011 - Great is Thy Faithfulness

The context for this sermon is an ecumenical Christian service of the word in the chapel of a large, high-acuity teaching hospital.

The Scripture is: Genesis 12:1-9

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Risk-taking faith

Today’s reading from Genesis is the story of the call of Abram and Sarai But, in pulling the story out of the bible as we do when we use passages for worship, we’re missing something important in this story. And that important thing is the context.

And I want to begin today’s reflection by reminding you of the context. Because this story of Abram’s and Sarai’s calling starts very abruptly with the words “God said to Abram, Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your parents’ house to a land that I will show you.” In the narrative as it’s presented in Genesis, there isn’t any preliminary build-up to this story.

Directly before God calls Abram and Sarai, we have the story of the Tower of Babel, Then a list of the descendents of Shem, of whom Abram is one of those descendents.

We have no other background information about Abram other than this genealogy. And, of course, we have no information about Sarai other than that she is Abram’s wife. And we have no previous information about Abram’s relationship with God, either. All we know is that, suddenly, God appears and tells Abram to get up and go from his parents’ house to an unknown land.

And I think that, because we are so used to hearing the story of Abram and his relationship with God and we know the end of the story…and because this verse is written poetically, it all sounds great and good and positive.

“Wow! God is going to make Abram and Sarai the Patriarch and Matriarch of God’s chosen people! Fantastic! Lucky Abram! Lucky Sarai”

But what would happen if we heard the story of today’s reading something like this: (Please excuse a bit of literary license)

"Suddenly, Abram heard a voice that he had never heard before claiming to be the God of all creation. He was afraid and thought he might be going crazy.

And the voice said to him, “You and your wife have got a pretty nice life here among your people, don’t you? You know everyone, your parents are here and life is pretty good, except that you have no children.

But if you and Sarai want to have children, if you want to leave behind your state of barrenness, you both are going to have to leave this land and this comfortable life and go to an unknown place that I’m going to direct you to.

I will give you descendents who will eventually become a great people. But you will also eventually despair of having an heir and you’re going to have to trust me on this one.

I will make your name great and your descendents will be a blessing to the world, but you personally won’t see any of the greatest blessings that I’m going to give them and you’re going to have to trust me on this one.

I will curse those who curse you, but the vindication you desire isn’t going to come in your lifetime and you’re going to have to trust me on this one.”

If we read the text in this way, it takes on a whole different slant. We see Abram and Sarai not as some lucky lottery winners who were unexpectedly and inexplicably given a jackpot. Rather, we see them as risk-takers who trusted in God. And we also see that some might call them fools. Maybe we would call someone a fool who behaves as Abram and Sarai did.

Call and Response

There is an ironic twist to this story because if Abram and Sarai stay in the safety of all that is familiar they will remain barren. In order to bear children and become the parents of God’s Chosen People, they have to step outside their comfort zone and take a risk in their old age.

If you wanted to translate this story into 21st century America, I could see one rendition of it where there is a con-artist somewhere in the background hoping to take advantage of a couple of senior citizens who she hopes might be befuddled.

After all, who ever heard of a couple starting a great dynasty when the woman is 65 and the man 75? And those who are familiar with Scripture know that Sarah (as she will then be known) won’t get pregnant until her 90th year.

Abram and Sarai are being called to abandon their families of origin, to renounce their former way of life and to set out on a journey that will be physically dangerous and to aim for a future that is logically impossible. But unless they take a risk and step out in faith, they will not bear fruit. God initiates the promise that God makes to them, but the choice as to whether or not to act on God’s promise is up to them.

And for me as a Methodist, that’s a great metaphor for what a life of faith is all about: God initiates and human beings respond to God’s plan. The life of faith, although initiated by God, is always a two-way street that requires the participation of both parties. True faith is not a matter of “cheap grace” where we accuse anyone who responds to God’s plan and calling as trying to earn God’s favor by human works.

Rather, faith acknowledges that everything in life is a gift from God, and that these gifts are given to us out of love in order that we might respond to them.

At the end of the day, faith is call-and-response. God calls and we respond.

God is Faithful

So - the story tells us - Abram and Sarai set out for the land of Canaan.

They set out in order that their descendents should become God’s chosen people……so that all nations and races and peoples would be blessed by them, and would be blessed as they were blessed.

But, for me, the most amazing and difficult part of this faith-journey was that neither Abram nor Sarai were going to live to see the fulfilling of the promise that God made to them. They were not going to see their descendents become a great nation. They were not going to see Isaac give birth to Jacob who was to become Israel and the father of God’s Chosen People through whom all peoples of the earth would be blessed.

At the end of the journey, at the end of their lives, Abraham and Sarah were still walking by faith rather than by sight. By rights, each of them could have gone to their grave saying something like: “God gave us something but God didn’t give us what we had been promised.”

But those of us who know the entire story know that God did, in fact, fulfill the promise made to Abram and Sarai. God remained faithful to Abraham and Sarah (as they would become), and through them to the people of Israel and through them, God remained faithful to all of humanity.

Even though Abraham and Sarah didn’t live to perceive the fulfillment of the blessing, it doesn’t diminish the fact that God came through as promised.

By responding to God’s call, Abram and Sarai stepped out of their barrenness and into a new future. And I find that both an inspiration and a challenge. Because it’s not always easy to have that kind of faith. It’s not always easy to trust in God’s faithfulness when events do not unfold as we expect and maybe when it even looks like God didn’t fulfill the promises that were made. It’s easy enough to say the words “God has the situation mapped out” but it’s not always easy to walk into the future when you feel that God has not given you a glimpse of that map.

And so, to encourage one another, we tell stories like this one of God’s faithfulness in the past and we remind each other that God continues to be faithful to us today. As people of faith, we remember that – as the author of Hebrews said – “we desire a better country”. Not just in “heaven” but also in the here and now.

Conclusion

For me, it is Good News that God is faithful and keeps God’s promises, even if I can’t perceive right now that those promises are being kept.

For me, it is Good News that other people of faith struggle with difficulties along their journey with God.

And for me, it is Good News that, as we step out in faith, that we are in a very real sense co-creators with God in the divine unfolding of history.

As we go from this place, I pray that the God of Abram and Sarai will bless each one of us as we take those initial steps out of our barren places into the unfolding of God’s creative endeavor.

I pray that we will be able to encourage other people of faith and to be encouraged by them.

And I pray that, whether or not we see the final result of God’s blessing on our lives that we will nevertheless be able to embrace God’s mysterious peace which surpasses all of our own human understanding. May the peace of God be with us always. Amen

Sunday May 8 2011 - God With Us in the Journey

The context for this sermon is an ecumenical Christian service of the word in the chapel of a large, high-acuity teaching hospital.

The text is Luke 24:13-31.

I have used some ideas from the following websites in this sermon:
* Working Preacher
* Beatitudes Society

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Introduction

Cleopas and his companion are in shock.

They didn’t go to Jerusalem just because they were curious onlookers who heard about Jesus and the controversy that surrounded him. And they didn’t go there to see the equivalent of a first century soap opera: to see whether Jesus would make a play for power this Passover or to see how the Roman Empire would respond to him.

Cleopas and his companion were disciples of Jesus. Obviously, they were not part of the closest twelve disciples, but they were disciples nonetheless. Jesus was their Rabbi, their teacher and their Messiah. They believed in him.

They went to Jerusalem because they believed him when he said that the Messiah had to die but would rise again in three days. And so they stayed in Jerusalem and they waited for the resurrection. They waited for the resurrection that the women witnessed in the verses just prior to this story, but somehow they missed it.

The passage tells us that on the very same day that the women witnessed the empty tomb, that Cleopas and his companion started their journey back to Emmaus convinced that their hope had been in vain.

And, as they made their way back to Emmaus from Jerusalem, they were in shock and in mourning. They had had so many hopes and dreams and now all of these were shattered. Jesus had not risen from the tomb. Jesus was dead, and all the hopes and dreams that they had invested in him were dead too.

Everything that they had hoped that he would do for them was dead. They had lost Jesus and any living relationship that they had hoped to have with him in the future had also disappeared.

Like everyone who loses a loved one, Cleopas and his companion were in shock. Their world had been turned upside down and they didn’t know what to do.

How ironic, then, that when Jesus appears in their midst, their souls are so clouded with shock and pain and mourning that they don’t recognize him. In fact, they tell him: “You must be the only person in the entire city of Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s going on!” They think that it’s Jesus who is clueless about reality when, in fact, it is they who are temporarily blind. They believe that God is dead when, in fact, God is walking with them right at that very moment.

Where is God in All of This?

Reading this story in this way made me chuckle a bit to myself because I do this too:

God can be right there with me in my journey and I don’t recognize the divine presence. God can be right there relating to me, trying to communicate, trying to teach me and show me the truth, and I don’t recognize it.

I say that I believe that God is present in every situation, but like a lot of people, I only partly believe it. Now there are times when I recognize God in the middle of my messes. But, like Cleopas and his companion, there are also times when it is only after the event that I realize that God was there all along.

And one of the things that I find comforting about this passage is that Jesus doesn’t get fed up. He’s walking and walking with these two men for a few hours and they are telling them about their lost hopes and dreams. They are telling him about how God was not present in the events of Holy Week and Easter after all.

But Jesus doesn’t walk away. He doesn’t get fed up. He doesn’t throw up his hands and declare: “Well, if they can’t see me standing in front of them, why am I even bothering?” Jesus just keeps walking with them.

Jesus also doesn’t get annoyed with them because they are grieving and in shock and in pain. Jesus doesn’t run away from their pain and their grief. He just stays with them. He accepts them as they are and doesn’t abandon them because it would be a lot easier emotionally to make the journey on his own.

Jesus just sticks with them and keeps on walking.

If this story is anything to go by, God continues to walk with us during our times of challenge and isn’t all that easily put off.

It can happen that during difficult times we ask ourselves the question “Where is God in all of this?”. This story suggests to me that the answer is that God is right here. Just like the story of the footprints in the sand: we think that God has abandoned us when, in fact, God is the only thing that is keeping us going.

We Had Hoped

The other aspect of the story that touched my soul was when Cleopas and his companion outlined to this presumed stranger their failed hope “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

Because all of us also have failed hopes:
•“We had hoped that that this would be the doctor who could help our loved one recover.”
•“He had hoped that she would call.”
•“They had hoped that their son would come back from Iraq.”
•“We had hoped that this was going to be the company that would hire him.”
•“We had hoped that our child would be born healthy.”

But the stranger interrupts the travelers’ litany of grief and despair and he demonstrates to them that there is a bigger picture. He shows them that this story of Jesus is part of an ancient story of God’s saving action in the world.

God’s story is woven into the story of humanity. Jesus helps them to see that there is another way to look at this story.

The disciples had hoped that Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel but they had hoped for the kind of victory that the world understands. And they were still hoping for that kind of victory, for that kind of resurrection.

On this first day of Easter, it was still way too early for these disciples to understand that God was offering them a completely different sort of redemption than the one that they expected.

God is With Us

I love this story because it is a story of God’s presence with us in all the aspects of a life of faith.

It’s a story of God’s presence with us in the breaking of the bread: God is with us in the ordinary things of life and God is with us when we gather as a Church community at the Lord’s Supper.

But it’s also a story of God with us in our faith journey: God with us when we don’t recognize God’s presence. God’s sticking with us when we are in shock, in grief, when we are confused and even when we presume to lecture God incorrectly about what God is all about!

This story is certainly a story of the assurance of God’s persistence in being present with us.

But there is also a lesson in the story: if we look around and we don’t see God, maybe we need to look again and shift our own preconceptions of where God might be.

My prayer for all of us this morning is that, as we go through this week, we will know the assurance of God’s presence and, carrying that faith with us, that we will look for God even in the most unlikely of places.

Amen

Friday April 22 2011 - My Lord My God is Crucified

The context of this service is an ecumenical Good Friday service in the Chapel of a large teaching hospital.

The texts are John 18 - 19

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People

It was the people in this story that struck me as I read the text. All the different kinds of people – a whole cast of characters – with a wide range of motivations.

First we have the groups of people:
The disciples, Jesus’ closest twelve.
The Roman soldiers.
The courts of the High Priest and Pilate.
The common people lurking in the High Priest’s courtyard.
The spectators on Good Friday come for a good execution and a bit of entertainment just as people have done from time immemorial.

And then we have the individuals, too many to list now:
Jesus, of course.
Judas, the disciple and the betrayer.
Peter, who is disciple, defender AND betrayer.
And Annas (the High Priest) and Pilate. So-called “leaders” who don’t seem to be doing a lot of leading.

I don’t know about you, but as a child I was taught to read all of these events as things that happened because Jesus needed to die for my sins. So, as I sat in church on Good Friday hearing these stories, there was a kind of inevitability about it all. In the same way that I knew how the story about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs turned out, I knew the story about Jesus praying in Gethsemane, judged by the High Priest and by Pilate and marched off to crucifixion.

It never really occurred to me that, in some very real sense, these events occurred because a number of people – both groups and individuals – made free choices. Free choices which led human beings to execute the Son of God. And as today’s reading reminded us, Jesus didn’t call down legions of angels to fight the legions of Caesar. He left the events of human history to the consequences of human actions.

Jesus died because an angry mob was looking for a scapegoat.
He died because the rulers of the subjugated people were frightened and thought it was better for one man to die than for the nation to suffer.
He died because the official representative of the Empire didn’t have the courage to do what he knew in his heart was right.
Yes, there is a sense in which all of this had to happen. Yes, he died for our sins, but he also died because of our sins.

The choices made by individuals over 2000 years ago killed Jesus. But I don’t think we’re off the hook. Unless any one of us can truly say that we would never be so frightened as to permit our government use individuals as scapegoats. That we would never give up one of our group in order that the group might survive. That we would never sacrifice another person on the altar of expediency. The human choices that were made by those individuals 2000 years ago are choices that we ourselves are very capable of making. And those choices killed Jesus.

Death

The other thing that struck me in reading this text was that it is a story about the death of a human being.

Of course, the Christian tradition affirms that Jesus was the Son of God, true God and true human being. But he was a human being. And I think that, historically, Christians have tended to forget this.

Often we tend to see Jesus as a kind of a Superhero, who shared all the qualities of God but was only masquerading as a human being. But the Passion story is also a story about a very human Jesus: a man who made sure that his mother would be looked after, a man who was thirsty, a man who looked death in the face and gave up his spirit.

And this particular human death reminded me of the deaths of other human beings that sadly happen here in the hospital, despite all the prayers and wishes of the people who love these individuals. Despite all the best efforts, choices and work by the medical staff here. Deaths that sadly sometimes happen despite all our best choices. And just like Jesus had all these different people surrounding him at the time of his death, so too do families often gather at the death of a loved one.

And that reminded me once again that, as a Christian, I believe in an incarnate God: a God who took on human form. Christianity does not tell us that we humans are a lower form of life who have to work very hard to rise up to the level of the divine. Christianity tells us that, by divine grace, God became embodied like us. Christianity tells us that, if we have seen Jesus, we have seen not only the invisible God but we have also seen who we are truly created to be as heirs to the New Creation.

Although the Christian church tends to talk about the Incarnation at Christmas, I think that here in this hospital we need the incarnate God – true God and true human – even more on Good Friday. When we see individuals facing times of pain, illness, trauma and death it’s good remind ourselves that God had a body. As human beings, we all need the Jesus who understood physical human suffering and who did not evade it.

This – embodied, suffering Christ – is The One who we need to be by our side when we are gravely ill and suffering. The embodied Christ is the One we need when we begin to wonder if God is so far off that God has no idea what we’re going through. On Good Friday, we are reminded that God became incarnate not just as a little baby but also as the Suffering Servant.

Conclusion

Today is Good Friday. I regret if you think I’ve spoken too much about death. Because, of course, we know the end of “The Jesus Story” and it’s not ultimately about death. The story of Jesus’ mission is ultimately about resurrection, about New Birth and New Life and a new Reign of God.

And Easter, of course, is the source of the sure and certain hope that we have in Christ.

But I do want to urge all of us not to jump too far ahead. As a devotion, let’s linger a bit at the events of Good Friday.

Let’s remember that human choices – the sort that we are all capable of making – put Jesus on the cross. And let’s remember to that Jesus also freely chose his suffering. A suffering which somehow unites God and humanity in a new and lasting coventental relationship. But a suffering that Jesus chose because of his deep and abiding faith that, ultimately in the final analysis, death does not dwell where God dwells.

This is the ultimate source of the Christian hope. This is the hope of Good Friday that points us toward the hope of Easter Sunday.

As we commemorate the death of Jesus this afternoon, I pray that the hope that we have in the embodied, crucified and resurrected Jesus will be with us all. Amen

Sunday 30 May 2010 - The Servant King

I was asked to supply-preach this morning on the general subject of "Memorial Day". I chose to use the assigned Epistle reading from the lectionary, Romans 5:1-11 but I departed from the lectionary for the Gospel reading and chose the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet from John: John 13:1-9

Introduction

I’d like you to imagine with me a screenplay for a television movie.

The main character in my imaginary movie is a CIA agent who I’ll call Josh. Josh has spent the last three years working on a case that is very important to the security of the United States. He’s been hot on the trail of a terrorist cell and he’s just managed to uncover a major attack that is about to go down in one of the biggest cities in the US. Josh has just found out the time and the place for this attack and he’s even found out who is responsible for its planning. Furthermore, Josh knows that the terrorist group is on to him and that they are sending operatives to kill him.

And then, the movie switches scenes. Josh is at home. Knowing that a group of thugs has been sent to assassinate him in the next few hours before the CIA can put effective protection into place, Josh has chosen to go home to his family of twelve sons.

And what does he do? Does he pack his bags quickly and tell his sons that their lives are in danger and that they should leave immediately? No.

Instead, he prepares and shares a lavish meal with them. He tells them to remember him and to always do what is right and that, if they do, they will find that he is always with them. All of this takes hours. It’s not even a rushed meal before a quick get-away. It’s a proper, lavish, sit-down meal. Then he tells each son that, before he goes, he’s going to spend some time with each one of them, leaving each son with a with a personal memory of him because they will probably never see him again. As Josh speaks first to one son and then another, he also washes that son’s feet.

And while each one-on-one conversation is going on, Josh’s sons get more and more panic stricken. “The terrorists are after him! It’s been something like six hours now since he found out they were coming for him! Why doesn’t he leave the house? Does he want to get killed?”

In the final scene of my screen-play, the terrorists burst into the house, take Josh away, try him and execute him. Josh dies and the movie ends.

I wonder if anyone here thinks I’d have a chance of selling this screenplay to a network? Don’t worry, I don’t think that I’d have much of a chance, either.

The story is weird.

Normally, we expect our heroes to get the bad-guy. Or, if they don’t get the bad-guy, we expect the failure in the story to point to some kind of deeper meaning. Even if the meaning is something like the futility of trying to do what’s right or the difficulty of human existence, we want some kind of meaning.

But this story seems, frankly, stupid. If I submitted it as a screen-play to a Hollywood producer, I suspect that the reaction would be “Another illiterate wannabe writer who can’t even tell a coherent story.”

So why did I tell you this story this morning? Because I wanted to try to replicate how stupid and incoherent the story of Jesus’ death would have sounded to most people in his time. For them, as for us - when we are not hearing a story that has already been interpreted for us by 2000 years of Christian tradition - saviors are heroes. Saviors are people who win battles, they are not people who lose. Saviors are people who wield power for good, not people who intentionally give up power and who try to win their battles by serving others. And most of all, savior-heroes do not walk willingly to their deaths.

There are numerous examples in the various Gospels of Jesus demonstrating an approach to power that is very different from the “worldly” view of power. When the disciples argued amongst themselves about who would be the greatest, Jesus told them that it was the least of this world who would be first in his Kingdom. When Jesus, Peter, James and John met Moses and Elijah on the mountain at the Transfiguration, Peter wanted to stay in that powerful and exalted place, but Jesus sent the disciples back down the mountain to serve his people. When the Roman soldiers were coming to get him, Jesus chose service over his own life. Not just the service of the Last Supper or the foot washing or his teaching, but the service of crucifixion.

From God’s perspective, there is something about service that is important to the story of salvation.

God Serves Us

The title of this sermon is “The Servant King” so you might have expected a sermon about how Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, how he served them in the hours before his crucifixion and how we should serve others too. Those are good ideas and I agree with all of them!

And tomorrow is Memorial Day, when we remember those who died in service to their country. So you could also have expected a sermon calling to mind our gratitude for the very real sacrifices made by everyone who has ever given up their life in service to their country. That’s also a good idea, which I agree with wholeheartedly, too!

But it seems to me that if Jesus the Messiah, King of King and Lord of Lords, was willing to be the Servant King, that there must be something in the idea of “service” that is central to who God is. There must be something in the concept of “service” that is central to the Gospel and to his Kingdom.

This morning’s reading from Romans brings home this idea when it says, in effect, that most people would find it difficult at crunch-time to die for someone within their own family or their own circle but that God was willing to die even for those who are outside his circle, for those who don’t know him, in order to give them the possibility of reconciliation with him.

So the first thing I want to do is to remind you that, in Christ the Servant King, God has served us. Hopefully, this isn’t a new piece of information for any of us. But sometimes we need to stop and meditate on the things we already know in order to carry the benefits forward into our daily lives.

In Christ the Servant King, God served us. When you stop to think about that, that’s really an awesome and amazing thing!

Martin Luther said that Jesus ultimate service to us was to gain victory over sin, death and the power of evil. Jesus conquered death not by destroying it with force, but rather by facing death. He conquered death by going through it and coming out the other side. In doing this, Jesus trusted that the character of God the Father was a character of Resurrection and Creation rather than a character of death and destruction and that resurrection would be the ultimate outcome of his death.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews uses the analogy of Jesus as a pioneer of salvation: Jesus forged the way through death to resurrection and, by making a path for us, made resurrection, salvation and reconciliation with God possible for us too.

Jesus served us. God serves us. The One who existed before the beginning of time who created everything out of nothing. the one who knew us in our mother’s womb who intentionally created me, who intentionally created you…He serves us.

For me, what is even more mind-boggling about the fact that Jesus died and rose again for me is that God wanted to do this. And if the Gospel of John is to be believed (John 1), God wanted to do this before the beginning of time.

So my first piece of good news this morning is: “God serves us”.

Service is Costly

But the thing about service is that it is costly.

Those who know me know that, for the last ten years or so, I’ve enjoyed discussing Christian theology on the internet. One of my internet acquaintances is a man who just retired this year after many years serving as a Chaplain in the British army. He told me that currently those people who are serving in the British armed forces are the most decorated soldiers since the Second World War.
And he was quick to emphasize that the British army has not “dumbed down” its service metals: these men and women are the most decorated soldiers since the second world war because they have faced the most harrowing combat situations since that time.

Now obviously, the US experience since WWII is somewhat different than Britain’s but I doubt that the combat conditions for current American soldiers is significantly different than for the British forces. I suspect that many of us may know of at least one person who has been deployed to a combat zone at least two or three times. And while many of us probably have a vague idea of what kind of a sacrifice this sort of experience must be, I suspect that those of us who haven’t had it probably can’t even begin to appreciate the enormity of it.

In the same way, I doubt that we can truly appreciate the enormity of God’s suffering as he reached out to reconcile us to him through Jesus.

And I also doubt that we appreciate how costly the sins of humanity continue to be to God as works through his faithful people to bring his Kingdom to fruition.
I believe that God works continually to bring justice and truth into the world, and that when God focuses on justice, his focus is restorative rather than punitive. God is not interested in bringing about the Kingdom by punishment, but rather in bringing about the Kingdom through restoration of those people and situations that have gone wrong.

But justice through restoration is far more costly than justice through punishment. Restorative justice requires forgiveness on the part of the one who is wronged and it requires the one who is wronged to let go.

The cost of restorative justice is borne by the one who is wronged, which is why many people will object that restorative justice is not justice at all.

And, believe me, I do not say this glibly or lightly. My purpose here is not to lightly tell you to forgive someone who has done a gross injustice to you or to suggest that it is an easy thing to do. My purpose here is rather to underline the pain, the difficulty and the costliness of coming to the point of being able to extend such enormous forgiveness. And when you can extend that forgiveness – IF you can – it is the ultimate service to the one who has wronged you as well as to others around you. It is the ultimate act of grace. And the person who you forgive is free and so are you.

That kind of difficult and costly forgiveness is what God does for us. As individual human beings and as societies, it often seems that we humans are engaged in an all-out effort to mess up God’s efforts to bring about his Kingdom. (That effort we put into messing up the coming of God’s Kingdom is called “sin”)

But, because of the service that Christ rendered on the cross, God forgives us over and over. Over and over, God takes us back into relationship with him.

And all of that is costly. My second point: Service is costly

Service builds Relationships

But it is ultimately the costly service that Christ rendered to humanity that makes a relationship between us and God possible. And it’s Christ’s service that also makes it possible for us to build relationships with each other.

That’s my third point for this morning: service builds relationships and so service is ultimately redemptive and restorative.

In serving us by dying and rising again, Jesus made it possible for all human beings to have a relationship with God. In ways that we don’t fully understand and never will this side of eternity, Jesus’ death reconciled us with God. His death forged the existence of forgiveness, reconciliation and a deep peace (Shalom) into the very fabric of creation.

As Christians, we believe that having a relationship with God in Christ is fundamental to being a Christian. And we also proclaim the Good News that God wants to have a relationship with every person who he ever created. And I think it is also logical to assume that God wants us to be connected in relationship to each other – to other human beings - as well as to him.

And service, I think it might be argued, is the ultimate expression of relationship. Because when we do acts of service, we are not asking the question “What can this relationship do for me?” but rather “What can I do for this relationship?” When we serve, we are looking outside ourselves. We are putting the needs of others before our own wants.

Service is an expression of the kind of self-giving love that Christians have always claimed is at the heart of the Gospel.

Those who have died for the sake of their country rendered a very real service to their country. But, ultimately, the Kingdom of God will not be built through war; rather it will be built through peace – God’s deep peace of Shalom that makes everything whole. The Kingdom of God will be built not through service to one group of human beings as it wages war against another group. Rather the Kingdom will be built through the Gospel understanding that Christians are called to serve all people just as Christ died that all might be saved.

Memorial Day originally began as a commemoration of the lives of those who died in the Civil War. About 617,000 individuals, which is about the same number of dead as all other American wars combined. And the date for the celebration of this holiday was originally set near the date of the reunification of the Union.

Whether or not it was intended to be a Christian gesture, I think that such a date indicates some understanding that God does not take sides in our human games of unforgiveness and non-reconciliation. If we are ever tempted to believe that God does not weep for the death of our enemies, we might ask ourselves the question “Which American lives did God fail to weep for in the Civil War?”

From God’s perspective, true service is not the kind of service that prefers one side over another. The foot-washing was more than just service to Jesus disciples, it was also an act of service to the entire world. Jesus served all of humanity because he trusted in God enough to understand that the way to conquer death was to be crucified and walk through death to resurrection.

Conclusion

As we celebrate Memorial Day this weekend, I pray that we will remember all those who gave up their lives in service to their countries. For those of us who have never had the experience of combat, I hope that we take its dangers and sacrifices seriously enough to be thankful to God for people who put their lives on the line in this way.

Although Memorial Day was originally supposed to be a holiday that commemorated those who have died, I think it is nonetheless also appropriate to also say “thank you” those who are currently serving their country; say thank you to them as well as saying “thank you” to God for them.

But I also pray this morning for peace and for the coming of the Kingdom of God. I pray that, as Christian people, we remember that peace (Shalom) rather than war will be a feature of God’s Kingdom. And service, self-giving and forgiveness are the hallmarks of God’s great Shalom.

And I pray that the peace that passes all understanding will keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of Christ. Amen.

Sunday 9 May 2010 - Touchstone Moments

Text: Revelation 21:10; 21:22-22:5

Context: A Sunday morning Service of the Word at a large suburban church of mixed ages in Northeast Ohio.

Aim: Using the concepts of Resurrection and New Creation, to encourage members of the congregation to reflect on what the Christian hope means for them.

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Old Covenant

Everyone loves a happy ending.

And in today’s Epistle reading we heard the happy ending at the conclusion of the book of Revelation, which in my more mischievous moments I sometimes call the book of Hallucination.

But that’s not really a fair description of Revelation because the images didn’t spring out of nowhere like a bad dream. The symbols come from the prophetic books of Hebrew Scripture and they would have been as familiar to the author’s contemporaries as the image of the cross is to us.

To those who were steeped in the prophetic texts of Hebrew Scripture, Revelation speaks of the fulfilment of God’s covenant with his people. The forces of darkness and the enemies of God’s people are overcome by God’s envoy, the Messiah, and a new covenant and a new world are established.

New Creation

The images in the book of Revelation speak to God’s people of redemption, resurrection and new life just as certainly as do the cross and the empty tomb.

But the story in Revelation is not simply a retelling of the Easter story. It reminds us that God promised his people this ‘happy ending’ – this New Creation –since he made a promise with Moses and Abraham.

This morning’s Good News is not only that God sent his Son to redeem us and make us his own. But we are also reminded that redemption is part of the plan that God devised for all of creation before the foundation of the world; it was not just an afterthought.

Now maybe this piece of Good News seems overly optimistic. We might legitimately ask the question whether this image of living in a world directly ruled by God is even remotely in touch with reality. After all, there is war, terrorism, natural disaster and widespread unemployment all around us.

The only problem with such an objection, though, is that most of us who live in the West today have never faced the sorts of tribulations that challenged the author of Revelation nor have most of us faced the severe persecutions that are described in the book. The vision of New Creation expressed in Revelation does not come from naïve inexperience of life’s realities; rather it is a vision of hope born from the school of hard knocks.

Ultimate Worth

Of course, most adults in any culture have had a hard knock or two. Like me, I’ll bet most of you know people who are currently struggling with major challenges like unemployment, family issues, illness or disability. Or you may be facing such a challenge yourself.

Different people deal with life’s trials in different ways but I never fail to be amazed by those individuals who are able to see the positive side of life despite the sometimes very negative circumstances that they face.

What is it about a tragedy or a serious challenge that often results in a person gaining a sharp perspective on what is truly important? It is often in times of great difficulty that we have such touchstone experiences that transform our perspective for the better. Our minds are stripped of unimportant concerns and we become capable of focussing on what really matters.

In order to gain such focus I sometimes imagine myself close to death saying ‘Thank God for…’ And most of us, no matter how pessimistic we are, understand how we are going to complete this sentence. ‘Thank God for community, friends, spouse, children, grandchildren.’ And, hopefully, ‘Thank God for his presence in my life.’ I suspect very few of us would say something like ‘Thank God for my possessions’.

Perhaps the tragedy of human life is not that each of us must at some point face difficult challenges. Perhaps the true tragedy is that it is easy to lose the sharpness of our touchstone moments when our lives are comfortable.

These touchstone moments are an opportunity for ‘little resurrections’. They are an opportunity to walk in God’s direction and to see small glimpses of our lives from God’s perspective. But first we need to die to those old perspectives where we cling to things, people and events that are not of ultimate meaning. Because, until we die to our old ways of thinking, there can be no resurrection into new life.

Real Hope

On this sixth Sunday of Easter, resurrection remains the Good News. Not just Christ’s resurrection in the first century and not just our future resurrection into God’s New Creation. But also those little resurrections in this life when our minds become sharply focussed on what it is in life that is of ultimate worth.

As we go from this place I pray that, whatever trials we may be facing, our lives will be guided by those touchstone moments that God has given to us. I pray that, in our everyday journey through life, our eyes will be increasingly opened and we will catch ever more frequent glimpses of the hope that God holds out to us. Amen.

Sunday Nov 1 2009 - Radical Hospitality

This was another "supply preaching sermon" and I was asked to speak on the topic of "Radical Hospitality". This was one in a series of five sermons preached on the five areas covered in UMC Bishop Robert Schnase's book Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations.

This sermon is not a precis of the chapter in Bishop Schnase's book although it draws from Schnase's work. This is a thematic sermon and I chose the following texts: Deuteronomy 10:17-21 and Matthew 25:31-40.

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Introduction

Good morning everyone and thank you for your hospitality this morning in inviting me to join in your worship and share Scripture with you today.

And I guess it’s appropriate to thank you for your hospitality this morning because “Radical Hospitality” is the subject that I’ve been asked to speak on this morning. As I understand it, today is the second in a series of sermons on the subject of “the five practices of faithful congregations”.

But I expect that some of you may be wondering “What has hospitality got to do with the Good News of Jesus Christ?” It might seem somewhat obvious how being a hospitable congregation could help a congregation to grow and thrive, but you might not see a direct connection between hospitality and the message of the gospel.

God & Hospitality

So the first question I want to think about this morning is “What has hospitality to do with the good news that we proclaim as Christians?”

I don’t know what sort of images the word “hospitality” conjures up for you, but I expect that for most people, it conjures up images of dinner parties or maybe weekends away at a friend’s house.

But stop and think for a minute what hospitality meant to the people of the ancient near East. For a person from a nomadic desert culture, traveling from nomad settlement to nomad settlement, a question of hospitality might very well mean the difference between life and death.

It was usually the custom to allow a passing stranger to spend a night in your town or settlement, but then the expectation was that the person would move on. However, permission to camp overnight was by no means assured.

It was the normal social custom to view strangers with suspicion and as a potential threat to the community. (I wonder if that sounds familiar to us today?)

But remember our passage that we heard from Deuteronomy this morning: The reader is told that God himself loves the stranger and provides the stranger with food and clothing. And then God’s people are commanded to love the stranger because they themselves were strangers in Egypt.

“Loving” the stranger certainly goes beyond what we normally think of as hospitality in our society. The biblical concept of “loving” someone, as you probably know, is not just about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you; it’s about going further than that and actually putting their needs and welfare before your own.

And this is actually what the ancient custom of hospitality was all about. In the ancient near East, “hospitality” was an elaborate custom that included both testing and obligations on the part of the host and guest. Once the tests had been passed, the host and the guest were bound in a formal and permanent relationship that required both to look after each other in the same way that they would look after a member of their own family.

The guest was required to offer hospitality to the host if the need arose in the future and the host was always responsible for the safety of the guest. The host was required to do anything to secure the safety of the guest, even giving up his life in defense of the guest, if necessary.

I wonder if you hear an echo of any kind of familiar themes here?

I think that there is a very real sense in which we can say that God invites us as strangers and sinners into his Kingdom. In order to fully benefit from this Kingdom, we are invited to repent, just as the stranger is tested. And, as the host who is responsible for the welfare of his guest even if it means dying, God died in order to save us from the ravages of sin, death and the power of evil.

So, rather than having nothing to do with the message of the Gospel, I think that hospitality has much to do with it. God gives us undeserved and unimaginable hospitality and we are called as his children to give hospitality to others.

God welcomes the sinner and the stranger and calls us also to welcome the sinner and the stranger in response to his welcome.

In fact, we are called to love the stranger. We are called to extend a welcome that is not only friendly and hospitable but also to give a welcome that is risky, possibly dangerous, and which puts the needs of the visitor before our own needs.

I wonder how many church congregations actually manage to do this?

Radical Hospitality

I said earlier, that the title of this sermon is radical hospitality.

Why radical hospitality? Why not friendly hospitality? Or pleasant hospitality? Or nice hospitality?

I hope you are beginning to see that the nature of true biblical hospitality is radical; extreme, even. God’s hospitality in welcoming us into his Kingdom and offering salvation to us was costly. It wasn’t easy or “nice” and it wasn’t just friendly and pleasant.

And if we are going to communicate the height and depth and breadth of God’s love to other people in our own congregations, we too will have to engage in some costly hospitality.

A story is told of a Lutheran pastor in the former East Germany named Uwe Holmer.

Now, those of you who remember the East German regime know that to be a Christian in Eastern Germany was a risky business, let alone to be a Christian pastor. The regime discriminated against Christians and one of its policies was to make it impossible for the children of Christian parents to attend university or enter any of the professions which required a university degree.

Pastor Holmer and his wife had ten children, all of whom were denied university places and who had to make a living through manual labor. The person who was responsible for East Germany’s educational policy for 26 years was Margot Honecker the wife of East Germany's premier, Erich Honecker.

And then the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the East German regime was toppled. Erich and Margot Honecker were seen by many people in East Germany as their enemies. They were indicted for criminal activities and evicted from their home. The Honeckers suddenly found themselves friendless, without resources, and with no place to go. No one wanted to have anything to do with the Honeckers.

It was at that point that Pastor Holmer’s family invited the Honeckers to live with them.

However, their fellow citizens were not terribly pleased with the Holmers’ hospitality. The pastor’s family received hate mail from the German public and many members of his church threatened to leave in protest.

The hospitality offered by Pastor Holmer was not just nice or even just noble. This was a radical hospitality. A risky hospitality. A dangerous hospitality that put him and his family at risk. This is an example of truly radical hospitality.

Wat on earth could cause a person to give shelter to people whose life’s work and ideals had directly hurt his children's futures? And what on earth could cause someone to continue to give shelter to them in the face of threats and abuse from fellow citizens? Nothing on earth. Only the peace and love of God that passes all human understanding could cause someone to do such a thing.

Radically Hospitable Churches

Are we capable of this kind of radical hospitality?

I’ve got to be honest with you. Part of me hopes that I could behave this way in the same circumstances and part of me hopes that I will never be tested in such a way. But yet, I am inspired by Pastor Holmer. His actions draw from me the highest form of admiration.

And I believe that if we think about this story as a sort of benchmark for “radical hospitality” then some ideas that we regularly throw around about “being a hospitable congregation” begin to pale in comparison.

In his book “Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations”, UMC Bishop Robert Schnase defines radical hospitality like this:

“An active desire to invite, welcome, receive and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ.”

Hospitality isn’t just about smiling at visitors who walk into the doors of our church. It’s about an active desire to welcome and care for new people.

I wonder how many congregations consider themselves to be friendly churches but whose caring and friendship is based on the fact that the members of the congregation have known each other for many years?

Sometimes being a new person in such a group can be like going out to dinner with a newly-married couple as they sit there staring into each other’s all evening. They may be friendly between themselves and they probably genuinely want to be friendly with other people, but they are too wrapped up in each other to think that their friends might be feeling excluded.

As a cradle Christian who has spent most of my life going to church, my bet is that many if not most congregations are like this. We feel certain that we are prepared to be friendly to new people but, really, we want them to fit in with what we’re already doing and conform to the established group behavior.

In the UK, a poll was taken recently which – among other things – determined that it took the average person about two years after beginning to attend a new congregation to feel that they really belonged. Two years! That means the new people have to make an incredible commitment. They have to attend church for two years feeling like they are strangers before they can begin to feel comfortable.

That’s certainly not radical hospitality. I’ll leave you to decide whether you think its “hospitality” at all. If it takes someone two years to feel that they belong in a congregation then that congregation is not living out any kind of active desire to welcome and care for new people.

Looking Outward

So what does it take to be a radically hospitable church? In his book, Bishop Schnase lists some practical ideas that I will mention briefly this morning since I want this to remain and sermon rather than a lecture on strategic change management.

But there is one thing that the Bishop’s suggestions all have in common and that is that every single suggestion is about looking outside of the congregation to the needs of those who are not members of the congregation.

And when we focus on people outside our group, we are focusing on serving others rather than on being served ourselves. Or, to put it another way, we are focusing on the biblical concept of love. We are focusing on what is good for other people rather than on what is good for ourselves.

So very briefly, what are some practical suggestions?

Bishop Schnase suggests that every group that meets in church, every committee, and every activity should be constantly thinking “How can we reach out to those outside our church? How can we make our activities more welcoming?” Even those individuals concerned with maintaining the building can reach out.

Are there facilities for young families to feel comfortable? Is the building accessible to those with mobility problems? A really simple thing like are all the rooms correctly labeled? Are Vacation Bible School or Sunday School classes run for the benefit of church members or for the benefit of children whose parents don’t come to church? Can the choir put on an activity that makes young families feel welcome? Does the congregation keep in touch with families who visit the church at Christmas and Easter and invite them to other events? At the most basic level, will people from outside the church be able to understand your bulletin if they read it?

The Bishop suggests that every group in church should think about one thing that they can do that focuses on reaching people outside the current members. And this attitude of reaching out should become an on-going habit. He notes that “Institutions produce what they are designed to produce.” And he is challenging us as Christians – because I don’t think that this is just a problem of the UMC – to design our “institutions” to be places where change and outreach are built into the fabric of how we do things.

Before I conclude this morning, I want to briefly tell you a story about a part of my training for the ministry. I was required by the British Methodist Church to attend weekend seminars on a monthly basis. These seminars were designed to teach us by example how to nurture the spiritual lives of our congregations.

Most participants attended for two years but every six months a group of people would leave the group and a new group of people would arrive. The whole system was designed to accommodate this change.

And I promise you that we didn’t really do anything differently than many good prayer groups or Sunday School or bible study groups do. We didn’t really do any strange activities that you might imagine when you hear the word “radical”. All we did was expect the group to change. We expected new people to arrive and we expected to make room for new people in the group and to offer them genuine hospitality. We expected that people we’d come to know and trust would leave and we expected to “let them go”.

We didn’t spend a lot of emotional energy resisting change and we didn’t invoke the silent mantra of many a congregation “Because God doesn’t change, the church must not change either.” All we did was look outward and welcome the new people instead of seeing them as threats or as individuals who upset our existing group dynamics.

Bishop Schnase suggests a relatively “simple” solution that each individual in a church and each group simply think about how they can welcome new-comers and my experience would suggest that it really is as simple as that. When we really begin to live lives that genuinely seek the welfare of others, our lives begin to bubble over with joy and freedom and we become very effective witnesses to the Good News of the Gospel.

Conclusion

The good news of Jesus Christ, Paul tells us, is that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Or, to look at it another way, God offered us hospitality when we were still strangers.

In sending Jesus to die and rise again for our salvation, God was looking outside of himself to our needs. God said “These people need saving and I’m the only one who can rescue them.” He didn’t say “Oy! These people are messing up the beautiful order of my good creation! What is a Creator God to do?”

God doesn’t ask us to become holy before he invites us into his Kingdom. He doesn’t demand that we cease to be strangers and sinners before he offers us hospitality. Rather, he goes out into the highways and byways and invites strangers and sinners into his Kingdom and then he invites us to repent so that we can grow in holiness.

The good news is that God is eternally looking outside of himself to the welfare of others; we learn this when we practice the love of God in exuberant worship. The good news is that God gives us an exciting purpose to our lives: to look outside ourselves to the welfare of others; we learn this as we practice the love of our neighbor.

My prayer is that the reality of God’s hospitality for us will fill our hearts anew this morning. And I also pray that, filled with joy at the salvation we have been given and filled with thanksgiving at God’s hospitality we will go from this place determined to spread Christian hospitality to everyone we meet.

May God bless this congregation as you continue on your journey to be an evermore fruitful congregation. Amen

Sunday Oct 11 2009 - On the Road to the New Jerusalem

In August 2009, I returned to the United States for family reasons after 20 years of living in the UK. I left the Northeast Ohio / Cleveland area in 1975 when I went to university, and I never expected either to leave the UK or to return to Northeast Ohio. But life brings us unexpected twists and turns along the way.

I am not currently employed as a pastor although I'm currently doing s small amount of supply preaching. Below is the first sermon I preached as a "supply preacher" in the US. I am switching to US dating and spelling conventions. The sermon is longer than many of the previous sermons on this blog due to different custom.

I was asked to preach this sermon in a series of sermons on the broad topic of "return from exile". (Ironic, isn't it?)

This is a thematic sermon and the texts used were Zechariah 8:1-8 and Revelation 21:1-7.

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Introduction

Good morning everyone, and thank you for your hospitality here this morning and for inviting me to share in your worship and your meditation on Holy Scripture this morning.

Today is one of those instances that demonstrates what I believe is God’s sense of humor. As you heard earlier, I’m an ordained minister (“Elder”) in the Methodist Church of Great Britain and I lived in England for just over 20 years from 1989 until August of this year.

But I was born in East Cleveland and raised in Euclid. I left Northeast Ohio in 1975 to go to college and, as the years went on, I began to assume that I would never return to live in this area of the world. But my British husband and I moved to Hudson this past August to be nearer to my parents who are aging and need family near them.

And this morning is not only the first sermon that I have preached in American Methodism; it is also the first sermon that I have ever preached in the United States.

So you can see that today is something of a milestone for me, but I have to tell you that I do think it’s indicative of God’s sense of humor that the broad topic that I was asked to preach on is the topic of the Return from Exile.

Being From Somewhere – What Does it Mean?

Because a big question in my life recently has been: After 34 years away from Northeast Ohio, have I returned home or have I left home?

What, exactly does it mean to “be from” somewhere and how does “being from” a place shape our lives and who we are?

As I was preparing for this sermon, I immediately thought of Mr. Singh. Mr. Singh works at my local gas station just up the road. The first time I went into the gas station, he asked me if I was British and I explained my story to him.

Now it turns out that Mr. Singh was born in the Punjab, in India. I’m not sure, but I think he’s about my age. Mr. Singh came to this area of the world when he was ten years old. So he’s actually lived here longer that I have!

It starts you thinking: What does it mean to be “be from” somewhere? Especially in this day and age when people can move around very freely.

And I imagine that the Judeans who were returning to Jerusalem from Babylon might have understood this question of identity and “being from a place”. Because it took about a generation and a half for the Judeans to be able to leave Babylon and to make the journey back to Jerusalem.

So we can suppose that the vast majority of people who “returned” to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple had never lived in Jerusalem and they had never lived in a free Judea.

And I think that there is a parallel with us, as Christians. We are asked, as part of our Christian discipleship, to be part of God’s plan in building a New Jerusalem, but none of us have ever lived there.

So today, I just want to stop and take our bearings and ask the question: Are we still on course for our trip to the New Jerusalem? Do we, in fact, know where we are going?

Where is the New Jerusalem and what does it look like?

The New Jerusalem, of course, is a metaphor. And, like all good metaphors, it needs unpacking. Also, like all good metaphors, there are probably no Right Answers either. So I’m going to try to unpack it now with the caveat that this is my perspective. If you disagree with me, so much the better because it will get you thinking about what it is you believe.

The New Jerusalem

So, “The New Jerusalem”: Where is it? What is it? What does it look like?

Of course, the City of Jerusalem itself meant something important to those people who had been in Exile in Babylon.

Jerusalem – Zion – was the City of God. The place where the Temple was located and therefore the place where Judah believed their God physically dwelled. The dream of the Judeans (Southern Kingdom) in Exile was that they would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, and once more Yahweh would dwell with them and he would be their God and they would be his people.

But, the thing is that, although you can go back to where you came from, you can’t go back to when you came from.

I can come back to Northeast Ohio, but I can’t come back to Northeast Ohio in 1975 and I can’t come back to Northeast Ohio as a 17 year old girl.

During the generation that Judah has been in Exile, Judah has begun to understand its God in a different light.

Judah’s original understanding of its God was that God was on their side; and we see this idea reflected in a lot of the earlier Old Testament literature. Judah thought that God was for Judah and against other people. Their God would defend them from other nations and he would smash their enemies, when necessary.

But then came the Exile. And what was previously unthinkable happened: Jerusalem was defeated and the people of Judah were suddenly confronted with a new reality.

And so, in much of the biblical literature dealing with the story of the Exile, we begin see the development of ideas like God using foreign powers and kings to carry out his will – something that was previously unthinkable. And we also see the development of the idea that God cares about righteousness and justice and – something that was really unthinkable before – that even foreign Kings can be viewed by God as righteous and just.

Slowly, in the post-Exilic and prophetic tradition, the idea developed that God was not just the God of Judah, but God was the God of all the world. Judah came to understand that God’s sovereignty was not limited to Judah but that his sovereignty was universal.

So here comes our first piece of Good News this morning: The City of God, the New Jerusalem, is a place to which everyone is invited.

Unlike Judah’s earlier understanding, God is not a tribal god. God is not against anyone; he is not against any sort of person. God is for everyone.

No matter who you are or where you are from God wants you to be a citizen of his New Jerusalem. No matter what language you speak, no matter what the color of your skin, no matter what your gender, your marital status, whether or not you are a respected member of your community, God wants you to be a citizen of his New Jerusalem.

God is not just the God of Judah or of the UMC or the Presbyterian Church. God is not just the God of men or women or white people or Native Americans or African-Americans. God is the God of all people.

Ad I don’t know about you, but I think this is really good news! This is the stuff that makes me excited. The gates of the City of God are always open. No one needs a visa to get in. As long as we live, God will never, ever stop inviting us into his New Jerusalem.

The New Jerusalem – a Place of Justice

Now I’m thinking that there might be some people in the congregation who are starting to squirm right about now.

I’m betting that some people might be thinking “Hold on a minute, here! If God invites everyone into the City of God, does that mean that God doesn’t care about right and wrong? Does that mean that God doesn’t care about justice?”

I’m thinking you’re thinking “Pam, if you start telling me that everyone is invited into the New Jerusalem, then what does that say about the existence of right and wrong? Are you trying to tell me that, in the New Jerusalem, anything goes?”

And this is our second piece of good news this morning: that God cares about justice and righteousness. God cares about right and wrong.

No, I’m not trying to tell you that anything goes in the New Jerusalem. I’m trying to tell you that the New Jerusalem is a place where victims can find justice and where the discriminated-against can find opportunity. The City of God is a place where power is not used for personal gain but for the good of the entire community.

This, by the way, is what much of Old Testament tradition tells us is the function of a righteous King: to pursue the good of the entire community and to make sure that the powerful don’t exploit those with less power.

This idea of a Just King is why the prophet Samuel warned ancient Israel not to replace God as its king with a human king, like the other peoples. Samuel warned that human kings would misuse power, send Israel’s sons to war and grab power and wealth for themselves. Which is precisely what happened.

But in the New Jerusalem, God’s people dream of a reign of perfect justice and righteousness where God is once again King.

And no doubt, this is also what the Judean people dreamed of as they returned to Jerusalem from Exile to rebuild the Temple and the City of God.

So the second piece of good news this morning is that the New Jerusalem is a place where God’s justice is the order of the day.

The Church’s Mission

You may, however, have noticed that God’s justice might not seem quite like our human notions of justice. Human justice often majors on punishing the wrong-doer. Human justice relies on the threat of punishment to keep society in order.

In the New Jerusalem, however, justice and righteousness are the order of the day because people’s hearts have been changed by God.

Because of the life, death and resurrection of Christ, the Spirit of God changes the hearts of human beings so that we can accept God’s love and forgiveness, return that love to God and then pass it on to others. The reason that the New Jerusalem is a place where death will be no more and where mourning and crying and pain will be no more is because the hearts of its inhabitants have been converted to the love and service of God.

Now, you might be thinking “Hold on a minute here. You’re talking about the day when Christ will come again; you’re talking about the next life. And all this is fine and good and hunkey-dorey for the next life, but what about this life?”

ell, the thing is that I *am* talking about the day when Christ will come and I *am* talking about the eternal New Jerusalem. But I’m also talking about life here on earth. Because the New Jerusalem, the New Creation, the City of God is something that was inaugurated after the death and resurrection of Christ.

New Jerusalem may be “not yet”, but it is also now. It is both now and not yet.

The reason that there will be justice and righteousness in the New Jerusalem is because the hearts of its inhabitants have been converted to the love of service of God and humanity. And we – the universal church of Christ, those people of all denominations whose lives have been changed and transformed by the love of Christ – we are inhabitants of the New Jerusalem in the here and now as much as in the there and not yet.

As I think Pastor Jim is going to talk to you about next week, it is the job of the church – it is our mission - to build the Temple in the New Jerusalem. It is our job as the church to make the worship and love of God central to our lives. And, in consequence, it is our job to make love and service to our fellow human beings central to our lives.

We have been chosen to proclaim and witness to God’s love and forgiveness in both word and in deed. We are called to tell people of the love and forgiveness of God. And we are called to live as an example to others: to lives of righteousness, justice and truth.

And, for me, this is the third and final piece of Good News for this morning: That the church has an awesome, worthwhile and exciting mission; and that when we are empowered and used by the Holy Spirit, that God can change the world that we live in; God can change the lives of people around us.

And, I don’t know about you, but *I* find it exciting that the God-given purpose of my life is something so worthwhile. The God-given purpose of my life is to let God use me to transform the world. I think that’s awesome.

Conclusion

As we go from this place today, I’d like to remember what this New Jerusalem that we are traveling to looks like and to remember the Good News that we heard this morning.

So our first piece of good news is that citizenship in the New Jerusalem is open to everyone, no matter who you are, where you come from or what you have done in the past.God does not discriminate. Or, as they said in the old days, God is no respecter of persons.

The second piece of Good News that we heard this morning is that the New Jerusalem is a place where human lives are transformed and where God’s values of righteousness and justice reign. The New Jerusalem is a place where human hearts are converted to God’s standards and converted away from the standards of the world.

And the final piece of Good News that we heard this morning is that, as members of God’s Church universal, our lives not only have purpose, but they have purposes of eternal significance. When God entrusted us with the mission of being citizens of the New Jerusalem, he entrusted us with a mission that is both awesome and exciting.

And he promised us his Holy Spirit to help us in our task. The Church is not God; we are only God’s servants. We are God’s hands on earth. It is God who will finally build the New Jerusalem.

As we go forward into a new week, let’s remember where we are going. Let’s contemplate the awe and beauty of the New Jerusalem, but let’s also think and pray about how God might want to use us to build that City.

I pray that God will give each of us wisdom and insight as we contemplate our calling and I pray for that same insight for this congregation. And may the Spirit of God give you strength and courage to be his hands and heart in the world. Amen