January 30, 2011 - Epiphany + 4

God Blesses Unexpectedly

Matthew 5:1-12 & 1 Cor. 1:18-31

Epiphany + 4, January 30, 2011

Outwit. Outplay. Outlast.

I'm not a big fan of the TV show Survivor. I've only ever seen bits and pieces of a couple of episodes. But even I know that these three words define the strategy & the goal of the show.

Outwit. Outplay. Outlast.

Three words that aren't just the tagline for a TV show – no, they describe and define the way we think the world works, what we often think our strategy needs to be. If we are going to survive, perhaps even to prosper, we think we need to outwit, outplay, outlast the competition. If we want to get ahead, we need to be smarter, speedier, stronger, than the other guy. The President's State of the Union address this past week reveals that this is the belief of our culture. During the course of his speech, President Obama said,

"We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future."

“We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world... that's how we'll win.” Outwit. Outplay. Outlast. The world tells us, and so we have come to believe and behave, that this is what we have to do if we want to have the good life. If we want to come out winners, we have to work for it. If we are to experience blessings, we have to earn them. And not just that, we have to out-do everyone else. We have to out-compete our competitors. We will prove that God loves us best when we have finally left everyone else in the dust.

As far as I can tell, the majority of human beings throughout history have operated on this principle, this idea that we have to earn our blessings by outdoing our neighbors. It was true in Jesus' time too... people then longed for the good life, longed to be among the blessed, and people knew that it was the powerful, the popular, the prosperous who had somehow earned God's blessing. Something about them had caused God to smile down on them and reward them with honor and status and possessions. And everyone else, the ones who were just scraping by financially, the ones who faced struggles in their health or challenges in their relationships – well, obviously they were the non-blessed.

But then Jesus comes along and he sits down on this mountain with his followers and the crowds that have been clamoring after him, and he begins to teach. Here we get just the beginning of what is known as the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus starts here and doesn't finish until the end of chapter 7. The first words out of his mouth in this famous teaching are the Beatitudes – so called because that the Latin word for blessings, and with these words, Jesus flips all of our ideas about who is blessed and how we get blessings on their head. What Jesus says here in these familiar, well-known, beloved words of scripture doesn't line up with what his listeners thought they knew or with what we think we know. Jesus here in these words describes a different way of viewing the world, a different perspective on God's blessings:

Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the meek; blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the persecuted.

See what I mean? In our world, the wealthy, the influential, the movers & the shakers seem to accrue blessings. But that's not what Jesus says here. Under God's rule, the opposite is true – “Blessed are,” Jesus says – not just someday when these “rewards”, the “will-be”s, will come to fruition, but now, today – blessed are all of these folks who the world would overlook or ignore or mock, blessed are these people who are in less than ideal circumstances, who are spiritually poor or in mourning, who wrestle against the injustices of the world and strive mightily for peace, who show mercy and are pure in heart – these are the ones Jesus says God comes to and blesses.

It's hard for us to see that. It was probably hard for Jesus' listeners to see that too. From our worldly perspective, it seems downright foolish to think that even in the midst of difficult times, God can and does bring blessings. And yet, Paul reminds us in the 2nd lesson, his first letter to the believers in Corinth, that God tends to work in ways that the world sees as foolish. Paul says that the message about the message of the cross is foolishness. And if you think about it, it is. At the heart of our faith, we proclaim Christ crucified. That's at the center of our belief: that God comes as Jesus and dies on a cross. How ridiculous that must seem! What kind of a god comes as a mortal human being and lets himself get executed? Why believe in a god who is weak enough to die? But we know that that is the power of God, that through the cross God is making the world new. Through Jesus' death on that cross, we have righteousness and sanctification and redemption, forgiveness of sin, hope, promise, restoration. “For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Cor. 1:25).

So what we hear from Jesus this morning, as foolish as it may sound, is that God's blessing doesn't just come to those who are able to outwit, outplay, outlast the competition. Blessing is not, and never has been about human strength, human wisdom, human accomplishment. It's about God's strength, God's wisdom, God's accomplishment. It's about who God is and what God does – and what God does is come to those who are the least of these, even to us, even in the midst of challenging circumstances and blesses them, blesses us, perhaps because it's in those difficult times that we are most likely to recognize our absolute dependence on God, the absurdity of thinking that we can do it all on our own, and instead, turn to look for the blessing, the help, that can come only from God. God's blessing comes to each of us unexpectedly, and it comes from the one whose love will outlast us all. Thanks be to God.

Amen.

January 23, 2011 - Epiphany + 3 - Youth Sunday

I wrote the following sermon for two of our youth group members to preach on Youth Sunday. The numbers (1 & 2) designate the 2 different speakers. If you weren't in church on this day, you'll just have to imagine 2 young people (a 7th grader and an 11th grader) having a dialogue during the sermon time...

Follow Me

Matthew 4:12-23

Epiphany 3 – January 23, 2011

1. That's quite a story in the gospel. I mean, here we have these 4 men, minding their own business, literally. When Jesus finds them, they're working away at their jobs as fishermen – casting & mending their nets. And then along comes this Jesus, who moved into the neighborhood not all that long ago, leaving his hometown of Nazareth because his cousin John the Baptism was arrested – so Nazareth probably wasn't so safe for him anymore either. And as Jesus goes out for a walk one day along the seashore, he sees Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, and just like that he says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. Immediately, it says!

2. I know! And did you catch the next part? It says that as Jesus and Peter and Andrew went on their way together, Jesus spots 2 other brothers, James and John. They're fishermen too. They're working in the boat with their father, mending their nets. Matthew doesn't tell us Jesus' exact words; it just says “he called them,” - but he must have said about the same thing to them that he said to Peter and Andrew, because, “Immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him” too! Can you imagine?! Jesus shows up and says “Follow me” and they do it!!! Right then and there, they up and leave everything else behind – their jobs, their families, their homes – everything they've ever known. The way Matthew tells it, they don't even think twice, they just do it.

1. That's hard for me to understand. It'd be like someone coming up to one of us in math class and saying, “Follow me, and I will make you multiply people.” Or lacrosse practice, “Follow me, and I will make you run for people.” Or hockey or drama club or band. I mean really, how likely is it that we or anyone else we know would drop everything and follow a complete stranger just because he came up to us and said, “Follow me”?

2. And I keep thinking about Zebedee – James & John's father. How do you think he liked this whole scenario? To have his sons just up and leave him holding the nets... What would our parents do if something like this happened? What would they think if we actually did it – if we heard Jesus say, “Follow me,” and we just up and left whatever we were doing, quit school and left our parents behind? I think my parents would freak out. They spend our whole lives telling us to be careful around strangers, not to go with anyone we don't know, no matter what anyone might say. They'd definitely be worried. Who is this man? What does he want? I think they'd probably try to talk me out of it – or call the police to come rescue me.

1. Yeah, it's hard to put ourselves in the story. Most of the Christians I know have never had this kind of a call, where Jesus asks them to leave everything and everyone they know behind to follow and be faithful.

2. Still, I think this story has something to say to us – and to everyone here this morning. Because these stories in the Bible aren't just about things that happened to people a long time ago in a far away land. The book of Hebrews says the Bible is a living and active word – and that means that it's supposed to speak to us too. It's supposed to be alive in our lives. These stories we read – they're our stories too. So I think that even if Jesus doesn't call all of us to leave home and family and school and friends behind, he still calls us. I mean, isn't that what being a Christian is about? Following Jesus? Jesus comes to us in the middle of our everyday “stuff” - school, homework, practices, hanging out with our friends and says to us - “Follow me.”

1. I think that's kind of cool – that he calls everyone to come follow – and that he has something for all of us to do. Because that's a part of it too. Not just following with our words, but learning to serve him and other people with our actions. It's like Peter and Andrew and James and John were getting on-the-job training. None of them knew what they would be doing. They didn't know what it meant to “fish for people.” But as they walked with Jesus, going where he went, doing what he did – seeing how he taught and proclaimed God's reign coming near, how he healed the sick and cured their diseases, they learned from him. And then after a while, he sent them out to do those same things!

2. I think that's part of this whole call business – it's really just an invitation to live our lives following Jesus – in everything that we do, even if he never asks us to leave our hometown. And as we follow him, we learn to do the same kind of things that he did. He asks us to bring his light to the dark places of the world, to teach and tell others about the love of God for everyone, to offer hope and healing to the hopeless and hurting, and then to help them hear Jesus' invitation to follow in their own lives.

1. I hear what you're saying. It makes me nervous though. I'm not very good about talking about God or stuff like that. I'm not sure Jesus called the right person when he called me to come and follow.

2. I know what you mean. But Jesus always knows what he's doing. If he could use James and John and Andrew and Peter, I bet he can use us too, just the way we are, with our different abilities and our different interests and our different personalities. He takes all of those things that make us who we are, and he helps us learn to use them for his work as we follow him. God's love for us is pretty amazing and there are lots of people who need to know about it. All Jesus wants is for us to share that love – in our words and in our actions. He'll help us learn how to do it along the way. All we have to do is listen for his voice and follow him.

Amen.