Kingdom of the Caregivers (Part Two) - Reading the Heart of Need

Preached on Sunday, January 20, 2019

Scripture readings: 2 Kings 5:1-19; Matthew 9:1-13

Usually, when people ask me how I’m doing, I just say: “Fine! How are you?” Sometimes they’re already gone by then, because “how are you” can be just like saying “Howdy, catch you later!”.

Looking around near Bridgeport Bridge
Near Malakoff Diggins and North Bloomfield
California, May 2015

This winter, this past month, when people ask how I’m doing I tell them how long I’ve had my cold; and I explain how this is not because I’m getting old. It’s because I’ve always had disgustingly long colds. I go on to tell them how my roommates in college would complain about how long my cold had been going on, and how annoying I was, and why didn’t I go to the doctor?

Maybe that’s why it might be more polite, sometimes to just say “fine”?

No, when I ask you how you are, I really want to know. I Want to know how you are!

I wanted to be an astronomer, off and on, when I was a kid. I still have a small telescope that my parents bought for me when I was about ten years old. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve taken it out but I have used it, now and then. I’ve used it since I’ve lived here.

In the summer, I like to put a cot out in my back yard, with a sleeping bag, and just lie there looking up. I like looking at the stars and the planets and guessing which ones they are.

All of you are just like that!

To me, at least.

I mean, I really could just stare, and stare at you and wonder what you are and where you really are, way up there in the heavens above me.

Last Sunday I started a short series of messages in which I want to think and share what it might mean to care for the spiritual needs of others. How can we do that when we are like distant but wonderful stars and planets moving in the circles of the heavens? We’re all so mysterious.

That could be a good way of playing it safe with each other. One of the scary things my mom said to me when I was a child and I had done something wrong was this: “I can read you like a book.” That sure scared me. And school teachers claimed to have eyes in the back of their heads. Grown-ups were strange creatures who could know everything about you without your even saying a word. They know exactly what you will do next, and you can never know what they have in mind about you.

Now that I’ve more or less grown up, I don’t quite buy into that scary part anymore. I know that I can’t read you like a book. Although, I have been held responsible, before, for things that I should have known without having been told.

That’s just not in my grasp. If you tell me something important and expect me to read between the lines in order to “get it”, that will never, never happen. I am incapable of reading between the lines.

It can be a lonely thing, being a star out in the Milky Way, so far from the other stars. How can we help others in their need if we can’t read them? How can we ever hope to have our own inner needs understood and cared for if we are such mysterious creatures to each other?

We could share more. We could talk more, and be more personal.

That would help.

But that can be hard, too. And, then, what if our own hearts seem as far away from us as the stars and the planets of everyone else? What if you are too separated from your own star to know what’s really going on way out there, or way in there?

Today’s readings from the scriptures tell us about how the spiritual needs of people, including our own, can be hidden and disguised, or else How these needs can become visible, and clear, and accessible to our care, and the caring of others. Naaman the Syrian General with his leprousy; the paralyzed guy who was carried by his friends to Jesus; and the tax officer named Matthew, who because the source of our first gospel, all showed their spiritual needs that differed greatly from their apparent needs, or lack of needs.

I mean they all showed their innermost, genuine needs to Jesus. The people in the crowd hardly had a clue.

In the gospel, Jesus gave the young paralytic exactly what he came for, which was healing, but healing was not the first this he needed. The first Jesus gave him something completely different from physical healing. Jesus gave him forgiveness first.

Jesus gave Matthew something that no one else of his own people would ever dream of giving him. Most of his own people wouldn’t have given Matthew the time of day, if he asked for it. (Of course, no one had watches back then, to tell the time by.) Matthew’s real need was for forgiveness, like the paralyzed guy. Or, was it acceptance? Was it a purpose that mattered?

The young paralyzed man and his friends came to Jesus because he clearly needed more help than any human being could possibly give him. No human being could take away his paralysis. His best friends gave him the only thing they had to give by bringing him to Jesus; whatever Jesus might be.

All five young men were people of faith. They had no theologically and Biblically correct idea of who in the world Jesus was. But I think they could have said something like: “This Jesus comes from God. He comes right here to our town and he can take care of absolutely any need that anyone brings to him. Maybe he’s the king Daniel writes about, who goes to heaven on the clouds to sit on the throne with God. Who can know?”

It would be nice if the five of them knew this. But they may not have been that clear. It was only clear that Jesus was wonderful, and that he helped everyone who came to him.

Matthew had no faith. Maybe he once had a faith he had said “no” to. In any case, he had left his faith behind to work for the Roman dogs who had invaded and occupied the land that God had promised to Israel.

There’s no sign that Matthew was aware of any spiritual need at all. He as doing quite well, thank you. Matthew didn’t come to Jesus at all, let alone ask Jesus for anything.

Jesus came to him. Only Jesus saw Matthew’s real need.

Jesus came as a care giver for those in spiritual need. The healings, the miracles, the turning around of people lives, and calling them away from their old way of life (whether fisherman or taxman) was only part of the caregiving purpose of Jesus.

In the twentieth chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us that he has a caregiving job to restore the world to God. The job of caregiver, no matter how big and great, is still always the job of a servant. “Whoever is great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:26-28)

Jesus came to save an enslaved world. We are born with a need to be ransomed from the slavery of the sin of the world.

The Old and New Testaments, from that point of view, both give us servants (except for Elisha’s servant) who know how to help, and (more importantly) servants who know the root of the need.

The servant girl knew where the general could be healed. The general’s servants knew that their “father” (as they call him) needed to stop playing the hero and the great man, if he wanted to be healed. The general, after his tantrum, thoughtfully listened to the wisdom of his daily caregivers.

Because their identity as servants taught them their master’s greatest need, he became a changed man. He became a servant of the God of Israel.

The prophet Elisha had, from the very first, given the general a little task for his deeper healing. Elisha knew how to do this because he was, at heart, a servant. Elisha knowingly gave, for the general’s physical healing, a silly, repetitive, boring task, that could easily humiliate him, and enrage him.

The prophet was a caregiver, too, and was wise, like any servant of Jesus, to read between the lines and see the real need, not the obvious need. Serious caregivers learn how to look deeper, and go deeper, than others can see or do.

Jesus, from the first, gave the young, paralyzed man the forgiveness of his sins.

Two things make us forget that there is a simple purpose in forgiveness and so (if that is true) then Jesus intended to give forgiveness, plain and simple. The Pharisees turn forgiveness into a distraction and a complication.

In his effort to reach out to them, Jesus asks them to use this forgiveness to learn from him more willingly. Jesus tells them that now they know what his authority is, but that’s not why he started with forgiveness in the first place.

First, I want to explain something about authority in the Bible. There are a couple words for authority and power in the New Testament language. This one is “exousia” which cannot be passed on to anyone, although it may be shared. Exousia, in this way means “substance”. It has to be part of what you’re made of. There is a substance to being a spouse or a parent that really can’t be given to you. It must be ingrained in you, in these cases, over time, and they are never finished forming.

Ok, when it’s not part of who you are by birth, it must be learned, and you never stop needing to learn learning.

The authority of forgiveness in Jesus is a very part of him. In the animal kingdom, some animals (like wolves and dogs, maybe with the exception of poodles) are essentially, substantially predators. It’s their inborn authority to be predators.

Jesus is a forgiver. It’s as essential to the nature of Jesus as the authority of love. Because God is love. Jesus shares the nature and authority of God.

It may sound as though Jesus gives us the authority to go out into the world, but it is actually, always his authority, and not our own. Jesus’ authority is not a matter like saying that “the buck stops here”. It means that when we do what we are authorized to do, we are not doing it on our own.

Jesus is doing our task with us, and through us. Every act of our authority is a partnership, and a communion with Jesus. Jesus is being the caregiver through us.

The wisdom of the Caregiving God is working through us, helping us to see what others don’t see. The wisdom of the Caregiving God, in Jesus, is helping us to go and to do what others don’t know how to go and do.

The young, paralyzed guy needed forgiveness more than anything else. This much is the same with all of us. We all need forgiveness more than anything else.

But there was something that only Jesus could see. It wasn’t that sin or shame caused the paralysis. Forgiveness was simply the greatest need in this one person’s life. In some way his life was marked by failure that made him ashamed. It overshadowed him in a way that may not be common to most of us.

Without the wisdom of the Caregiving God, in Jesus, we might miss the need in others for simple, unconditional grace and forgiveness. We are called to be servants who serve with caregiving wisdom to forgive others with the love and grace of God.

Matthew’s greatest need was to be a servant of the Kingdom of God and not of the Empire of Caesar. Matthew needed to be the traitor and thief among the first disciples called by the grace of the Lord.

Matthew needed this, because we all need a traitor and thief to be loved, and close, and a chosen servant of Jesus. It’s by Jesus caring for the need that he saw in Matthew that we know that Jesus can call us away from being thieves and traitors; and not be like Judas.

Not everyone can come, and love, and serve Jesus as an honest man or woman. We, in order to be true servants of Jesus, need to know this. We, ourselves, need a life changing call. There are people around us who need a life changing call and purpose in life. There are people whose greatest needs may be acceptance and purpose.

We might only see those who don’t deserve such a call or invitation, but the wisdom of the Caregiver God, in Jesus, will tell us otherwise. Our own hearts will be changed by that wisdom to change the lives of the spiritually failed and loveless into the inspired and beloved of Jesus.

Naaman must have had a real spiritual need lodged underneath his outstanding competence and his ability to be recognized for always coming to save the day. The caregiver Elisha healed Naaman not only by having him wash in Israel’s river, but made him, from that time on, an undercover Israelite behind enemy lines. When Naaman led the king of Syria into the royal temples, he was really worshiping the God of Israel and the Father of Jesus Christ, to come.

There are people who have the spiritual need to live with family and friends as if he or she is an undercover agent behind enemy lines. They may live in a world empty of the people of Jesus to love and understand them. We see their real need. We are ready to be there for them, to help them.

What benefits came to those whose deeper needs were met? Did they go on to live happy, fulfilled, successful lives?

Naaman had to live the rest of his life knowing that so much of what he did was fulfilling his duty to the wrong side. He had his troops, his treasures won in war, his palace and his servants who called him “father”, but he lived the rest of his life knowing that the world should not be the way it is. He lived knowing that he was of very little use where he was, and he would watch everything go on to the breaking of his heart. Naaman went on to become sad, but wise.

The forgiven and healed young man may have gone on to live the rest of his life as a normal, ordinary, independent human being. What a great gift that would be, don’t you think?

Malakoff Diggins, old hydraulic mine
Looking across that big hole in the round

If he and his family went on in living faithful to Jesus after the Cross, and the Resurrection, and Pentecost, he would have been a perfectly normal human being who would have to keep his priorities clear and hold onto Jesus, no matter how the persecuting world was moving around him, and maybe against him. He would be persecuted, but useful to his brothers and sisters in Christ, and possibly happy in spite of the fear, or persecution.

In the rest of his life, following Jesus, Matthew traveled with the good news of Jesus to a whole lot of places (Persia/Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and especially south of Egypt) South of Egypt is said to be where he was a very successful witness for Jesus. He was so successful that he was killed there (burned alive) for his success. We just don’t know much about Matthew and how he ended.

There are other spiritual needs hidden in the stars of the souls around us. Caregiver Jesus, calls us to be caregivers with him to these and many, many others.

We can’t merely say, “How are you,” and know what to do. We don’t know where our caregiving will take those we help or where the help we receive will take us, in life. But we can learn what servants learn when we start serving the Servant-Lord Jesus.

To the Cross - Redeeming Our Failures

Preached on Wednesday, February 28, 2018; the 3rd Wednesday of Lent

Scripture readings: Psalm 51; Matthew 26:69-75

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like a failure before?

It really isn’t very hard to do.

Walking along Columbia River at Desert Aire, WA
February 2018

But it’s about the very worst thing that you can admit to, in this twenty-first-century-America of ours.

Failure is a hard experience to get through and if you try to explain to others what you’re feeling, you’ll probably get told one of two things. You may be told that you’re wrong. On the other hand, you might get told that the only failure is the one who thinks that he or she is a failure. Well neither brands of advice are very encouraging or helpful. In our own time and place in history, even the church misses the point of failure.

This is a Bible. It’s God’s word: God’s story; God’s message to you and me. It says exactly what God wants it to say for God’s own very specific reasons. God wants to show himself and God wants to speak himself to each one of us to give each of us the knowledge and the true understanding of God, and the knowledge and the true understanding of ourselves.

It’s so hard for each one of us to truly understand God and to truly understand ourselves. And we’re not so likely to be interested in truly understanding other people because (although we may sometimes want to help other people) we usually want to blame other people, or judge them.

God’s happens to be keen on us not going that direction, so God doesn’t waste his time or his word helping us to understand other people. So, God hasn’t designed his word to tell you about me, or to tell me about you.

God wants to speak directly to you about your own life, and your own need. He doesn’t do this in order to make you think that your life is all about yourself. God Doesn’t like that either. God simply wants to crack through our own stony brains.

God wants to let you and me know, without giving us any room for escape, exactly who we are. And, so, God has filled his word with failures.

Given a garden full of options, Adam and Eve made the one choice that they were told not to make. Noah, the only truly righteous human being on earth became a drunk after the flood. Abraham, who is the source of all God’s people of Faith, (whether Jewish, or Christian, or whatever) didn’t have enough faith to keep him from lying about his wife being his wife. The story of failure goes on and on.

In the New Testament, Jesus (who is God in the flesh) is continually scolding his disciples about their failures of faith. He scolded their failure to let the children come to him. Jesus scolded their failure to trust that if he asks them to feed a crowd using only a few morsels, that he himself will make it possible. They found that trust as hard the second time they fed the crowds as they did the first time. Even after the resurrection and Pentecost, they often didn’t get things right.

The Bible is a book about failures and it’s about the God who loves failures and never leaves them and never gives up on them. The Bible is about the God who never leaves the failures alone until he fixes them and recreates them, or until they come into his presence for the final great new creation.

Maybe you have never been a failure; but, if you ever have been, then, this book is for you; and the God of this book is for you. And the God of this book is the God of the Gospel, which means God’s Good News for you. The greatest wisdom in this world comes from knowing this truth.

Jesus was in a room of the High Priest’s big house, getting slapped, and punched, and spat upon because of the new creation he was bringing to Peter, and to us, and to the world. We read about Peter denying that he even knew who Jesus was, even though, when Jesus asked his disciples to tell him who he was, Peter was the only one who could put it into words: “you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. (Matthew 16:16)

In a few minutes Peter would run out of the gate of the High Priest’s house weeping hot, bitter tears of failure.

Peter wasn’t the worst. Judas sold Jesus for thirty silver coins. The other disciples had already run away to hide. Peter denied Jesus with his words, but the others denied Jesus by their absence.

John tells us about one disciple who went with Peter to the trial of Jesus. The one other disciple left on the scene got Peter into the house because the High Priest and his staff knew this disciple and his family. This one disciple was the one that John tells us “Jesus loved”: not because he was special, but because John felt too loved even to give his identity away when he did the right thing.

The nameless disciple, named John, was the bravest of them all because the Priest and the staff already knew that he was a disciple of Jesus, and so (if he did get in trouble because of following Jesus) going to the High Priest’s house could make things any worse. So, he was there to watch Peter’s failure happen.

John could have named himself here, to make himself look good. But I don’t believe that he thought of himself as a success, and so he hid his name from us. Practically the only one in the Bible who isn’t a failure doesn’t want us to know it. And we’re really only guessing when we claim that we know that he was John.

This Book, and this God who shows himself to us in Jesus, knows who you are, and what you will do, and what you will say, before you do or say it or even think about it. Before he sent Judas off to do his work, Jesus said, “One of you will betray me.” (Matthew 26:21) When the Passover meal was done, he said to all the rest, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me.” (Matthew 26:31) To Peter who claimed that he would never fall away, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” (Matthew 26:34)

Jesus knows our every weakness. Jesus knows all of our failures before we do.

Jesus also knows that what he will do for them (and for us), on the cross and in the resurrection, will make all of us into new people who will follow, and even be willing to fail, in order to keep right on following and taking up our crosses with Jesus.

Jesus hinted at this when he said, “But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” (Matthew 26:32) He knew that they would keep on following, even when they had seen the worst. Jesus knew that they would keep on following, even at the risk of failure.

Those who go ahead on the road of the cross, or the road of the love of Jesus, and keep on this road for love of the world and their neighbor, knowing that they will fail, and knowing that failure won’t keep them from succeeding: those are truly the people of Jesus.

Jesus died as a tortured and cruelly executed criminal. People would curse his memory. People would curse his followers. People may curse us. What looked like a curse in the form of a cross was and is, really, an infinite love that is stronger than any sin, stronger than all evil combined, stronger than Hell and all its forces, stronger than death, stronger than the universe.

The cross and the resurrection of Jesus turn failure into victory and salvation. Carry that on your back. Carry that in your heart. Do it, and you may change lives even because you fail.

True forgiveness is infinitely greater than the words that say, “You are forgiven”. Forgiveness is power, and healing, and life. The blood of the cross is stronger than any failure and Jesus calls to us to come to his cross and be forgiven. Come to the cross and be healed. Stop living by what you think of yourself. Start living in the life that comes from that cross. It’s new every day, every moment.

When I was twenty I wrote a poem a little bit about this. I’ve made some changes. But here’s how it goes.

“IF I SEEM TO FAIL” 

Lord, if I seem a fool, disaster-prone,

And powerless to hold true to your will,

To keep that faithful path you’ve given me,

Inherit all the joy that I’m assured

Can be mine if I’m faithful to the end;

If I, in folly, trip along the way,

Fall face down in the dust along the road

And seem, to all the world, cut off from you;

By my sad failure severed from the prize;

Yet, Lord, I pray that, by some mystery,

Your humbleness would take my vanity,

Transforming it to something like your cross,

Which fooled the world by looking like defeat,

And yet redemption brought. You seemed a fool…

Make me a fool for you.

Dennis Evans, written in spring 1973, revised.

Living and Dying, Earth and Heaven

Preached on Sunday, May 7, 2017

  

Scripture readings: Psalm 73:21-26; Philippians 1:19-30

“How many of you want to go to heaven?”

An old-time preacher asked the question, “How many of you want to go to heaven?” And everyone raised their hands, except one child. The preacher asked the child, “What about you? Don’t you want to go to heaven?” And the child said, “Yes I do; only I thought you were trying to get together a load to go right now.”

The Heavens
Desert Aire/Mattawa, WA
March 2017

Paul wrote a strange, radical thing to his friends in Philippi, in the north of Greece:

“For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (1:21)

Paul was living the life of a prisoner. He was chained up in a stinking, underground dungeon. The remains of this dungeon can still be seen today. He was being held for trial before the emperor’s court, in Rome. He was on trial for his life. 

Being on trial for his life was a very familiar experience for Paul, except for the part about the emperor. That part was exciting. But Nero was the emperor now, and Nero had started to persecute Christians as dangerous conspirators, the enemies of humanity and enemies of the order of the empire.

There had been a great fire in the city of Rome. Some citizens blamed Nero who had been making plans to redevelop the city.

Nero needed someone else to blame, so he blamed the Christians, and he had many of them tortured and killed. And once he had painted them as the real enemy, if he didn’t want to look dishonest, he had to keep it up.

Things did not look good for Paul. It was a serious time to settle the mind, to keep focused on what was truly important. But the question was: was it time for Paul pray for inner peace and strength, or else should he prepare to let it all go, and focus on heaven?

Or else, should Paul pray for a dismissal, or an acquittal in court? 

And should he pray about his old missionary plans? Should his goal be traveling west to Spain; or back east again to visit the churches he had started in Greece, and beyond? What should he want?

Paul’s friends wanted him to live. They wanted him around.

But what did Paul want? Certainly he wanted to be around. But should he want this? Should he be ready to die, or ready to live? And what does it mean to die? And what does it mean to live?

Paul tells us what he believes, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Now this is sort of like saying, “To live is great, and to die is even greater.”  If we found ourselves in Paul’s situation, it would be understandable if we considered our life to be over and hopeless. But, for Paul, sitting in the stink of one of Rome’s worst jails, waiting to have his case heard by an emperor who was politically motivated to torture and kill him... for Paul, in that time and place (even there) to live was Christ. 

When he says that “to die is gain” he doesn’t mean “There is nothing left for me here.” There is more to it than meets the eye. Even here, in this prison, in the shadow of death, life is Christ.

I once heard a professional mountain climber being interviewed. This man was well on his way to his goal of climbing the fourteen highest mountains on the earth, and doing it without any bottled oxygen. We are talking about heights of twenty-eight thousand feet, and more. Up there, the air is so thin that the muscles and the brain begin to starve, for the lack of oxygen. The muscles are depleted. The brain loses judgment, and a clear sense of time and direction. Up there, the exhaustion and cold are torture.

Climbing each mountain takes months of training, and preparation, and attack. By the time of his interview, this climber had conquered nine of the fourteen mountains. He loved doing this! For him to live was mountain-climbing.

Paul was a spiritual mountain climber. And he was facing the tallest mountain of his life. And he said, “For me, to live is Christ.”

I want to list for you a few of the parts of Paul’s life that were NOT what he meant when he said “to live is Christ”. Here are some things that Paul, as a follower of Jesus, could point to and say, “To live is a great thing.” Yet these are not the same as saying, “To live is Christ.”

Here is the Christian life as a great thing. For a follower of Jesus, having sisters and brothers in Christ is one of the things that make living great. There are people you belong to, and they belong to you. But this sense of belonging doesn’t happen only because you share a common cause, or because you’ve spent time together, or even because they may be your very own flesh and blood. There is a sense of belonging that can include all that, but it’s much more than that.

There’s a sense of belonging that comes from knowing the fact that we don’t own each other. The greatest sense of belonging comes from knowing that we are given to each other by God. Actually, everyone we know, everyone we meet, is God’s gift.

The most normal thing in the world, when you think of your brothers and sisters in Christ… the most normal thing in the world is to give thanks. In every letter but one (Galatians), Paul starts out by giving thanks for the people to whom he is writing; even when they are driving him crazy with their backsliding, and their immaturity, and their conflicts.

When Paul says that he hopes to remain with them, and he says, “I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you,” the word translated as continue is really a side-by-side-continuing. “I will stay, and I will stay beside you, with all of you.” This staying side-by-side with people who are given to you by God, and made a part of you by God, is a part of following Jesus. It is something that makes following Jesus a great thing.

Other things that make following Jesus great are these: standing for the truth, being witnesses of good news in a world that is crying out for good news. There is having a God-given purpose in life. There is standing for compassion and mercy. There is being prayed for by others, and praying for them. There is being a servant. There is the help of the Holy Spirit, or the supply of the Spirit. This comes when the Lord renews your strength, or gives you insight into life and shows you the way. To live (following Jesus) is great.

But Paul says... “For me, to live is Christ...” This is something more.

Partly, this is a matter of what is important to you. For instance, you might say: “Farming is my life”, or “Education is my life”, “My work is my life”.

You might say: “Success is my life.” You might say, “Survival is my life”. Or you might say: “My family is my life”. Or you might say: “My happiness, my comfort, is my life”. These are answers to the question: What is the most important thing for you? And then you could say: “Christ is my life”. That brings us closer to what Paul is saying.

Now what if you are like me, and you have a lot of different things are important to you? What if there was a conflict between your work and your family, and both were in competition for the center of your life? What if your work was not good for your family life; or your spouse and children hated the work you did? That happens to people working in the ministry.

The Bible doesn’t really say that one kind of work is more holy than another. It just says to work, if you can, and to do honest work.

The Bible says to work so that you can eat. It says to work so that you can have something to give. Otherwise you’re free. You have lots of options; unless God gives you only one.

And then the Bible says to be a good husband or wife. Be a good parent. Sons and daughters: be good to your parents by obeying them. These are not options. Here we are not free. Surely your family life is more important than the work you do. And if they are more important than your work, then they will motivate how you relate to whatever work you do; so you do the right work, in the right way.

If Christ is your life, then Christ will win in any competition with any other part of your life. But Christ will also motivate you in every other part of your life. Christ will motivate you as a worker, and Christ will talk to you about the kind of work he calls you to do, and he will make your special calling become a way of following him in holiness; in the Lord’s unique purpose for you.

If Christ is your life, then the Lord will make your relationships with your family into ministries. Your spouse, your parents, your children will all be holy ground for you. If Christ is your life, then even your relationships with strangers will turn into ministries. Christ will give you your priorities, and he will show you where to sit tight, and when to hang loose.

But you can say “Christ is my life” and still not understand what it means to say, “For me, to live is Christ.”  You can say “Christ is my life” and be only a slave in the way you live for Christ. You can be a drudge for Christ.

To say, “For me, to live is Christ” is more like being in love, which is wonderful, and scary, and joyful, and challenging, and frustrating, and exciting, and confusing, and fulfilling, all at the same time.

The word atonement, in the Bible, which refers to something that brings people together with God, and brings peace with God, means the action of making them “at one”. Atonement means “at-one-ment”. There (in “at-one-ment”) to live is Christ.

It’s like marriage, where two become as one. In love, there is passion and the desire to be together all the time, and even if that seems to cool down, there are always thoughts like: “She would love to see this.” or “This is something he wouldn’t like.” To say, “For me, to live is Christ” means “He is my reason for living. And he is not only my reason for living; he is the very source of my life. He is the love of my life. He is my joy and my peace.”

“For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” I think this means something like, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is to gain more of Christ.” Paul surely says this very thing when he writes: “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far...” (Philippians 1:23)

But better than what? Better than being of use to his friends and family in Christ? Paul loved being useful.

Heaven will bring us the pure enjoyment of love and thanks in a way that is separate from usefulness. This is very strange. When Paul talks about staying, he talks about his presence with his people being necessary, and then he talks about leaving that behind.

Going on to be with the Lord will be something different from usefulness. It will be the end of being of use, and of being necessary. Or it will be a graduation to something better. Perhaps there is something more wonderful than being of use, and much better than being necessary.

I do believe that there may be some kind of joyful work or service to do in the everlasting life, after we depart to be with the Lord. It’s possible. But we will not do it because we are indispensable, or even merely useful. We will not be loved for what we do; we will do because we are loved, and because we love.

If we want to know anything about the Lord, we have to know that the whole message of the good news of Jesus Christ is that he did something for us that we could not do for ourselves. Until we get that, we don’t get anything. And here we fret and we think that our life has no purpose if we cannot do things for others, or even for ourselves. 

But that isn’t true. We have a purpose because God made us, because God loves us, even when we are helpless and useless. This is the truth. But it is very, very hard to grasp.

A new born baby has a purpose in life. An unborn baby has a purpose. A flower in a vase has a purpose. A hug and a kiss have a purpose. The clasp of a hand has a purpose. A song has a purpose.  A sunset has a purpose. None of these things are of any material, practical use to us at all. But they are priceless: absolutely priceless. 

Craig Barnes was a young pastor when he faced a long and difficult battle with cancer, and the treatments left him too sick to be of any use to his congregation, or his wife, or his children, and he didn’t know if he would ever recover. This made him feel completely helpless and hopeless. Then, one day, he felt that the Lord was telling him this: “You are too important to be necessary. You deserve to be loved.”

Part of heaven will be the experience of this love. “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” To die is to gain more of Christ.

Often the Bible compares death to sleep. The body stops, and takes a long, long rest.  Other times the Bible talks about death as moving away from our bodies and this world, into the presence of the Lord. “You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.” 

“I desire to depart and be with Christ.”

The word that’s translated as “depart” tells us what it means to die. The word could be used a number of different ways. It literally means the loosening or the untying of something. It’s the word people said when they struck camp; when they loosened the ropes and the stakes on their tents, to pack them up and move on.

When I was a kid, we went camping every summer, and it was one of the great rituals, setting up the tent. And it was just as important a ritual to take it down exactly right, so it would go up exactly right, next time. And when we struck camp for the last time, then it was time to go home.

The word “depart” means loosening, and untying of the moorings of a boat, so that it can launch out.

In one of the churches I served, we went for an annual rafting and kayaking trip every summer. On these trips, we had this great ceremony in the mornings, when the rafts were packed and ready, and everyone was in their places, we said a prayer, the knots were untied, and we pushed off down the river.

The word we translate as depart also means, of all things, unraveling a problem, it means finding the solution. There’s a time and a place where all the hurts are healed and all the questions are answered. Those who wait till the end will understand.

There’s a phrase from an old prayer that goes like this: Help us to live as those who are prepared to die. And when our days here are ended, enable us to die as those who are ready to go forth and live, so that whether we live or die our LIFE may be in Jesus Christ our risen Lord.

Paul said, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Earth is for life. Heaven is for life. Living is for life. Even dying is for life. In Christ, it is like being in love.

This is what Paul believed. This is what the Bible teaches. This is what we believe.

Faith for Life - The Wounded Hero's Arsenal

Preached on Resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017

Scripture readings: Exodus 15:1-3; John 20:19-31

I saw a cartoon once with a young minister talking to his little boy. The minister has his sleeve rolled up, and he’s pointing to a long, jagged scar on his forearm, and he says, “And I got this scar in the battle for the new church carpeting.”

Spring Photos Around Desert Aire/Mattawa, WA
             April 2017

We get other kinds of scars from much worse battles and ambushes.

Jesus got many scars. He was scourged, and crowned with thorns, and nailed to a cross, and he died there. On his way to death he received many wounds. After he was dead, his heart was pierced by a spear. When he rose from the dead, he showed those wounds to his disciples.

Most soldiers would rather not talk about their battles. Still, Jesus was like a soldier showing the scars he had gotten in a war that he had won.

In another way, Jesus was briefing his disciples by showing them his wounds. His disciples would have to take up the fight for themselves because, although the war was won, the enemy had not surrendered and the fight was still going on.

The same fight is still going on to this day. It’s our fight too, and we need to be briefed in the fight by Jesus.

The scars of Jesus are the signs of his victory. The simple fact that he was so terribly wounded, and died, and rose from the dead was the very way he won the war. His scars are his trophies, his medals, from that war.

But Jesus has better trophies than these: the trophies that he is most proud of. After he showed the disciples his wounds, he told them what he had won for them, and for us.

The greatest trophy is everlasting life as the gift of Jesus to us; with heaven first, and then our very own resurrection (the resurrection of all things). When he raised his friend Lazarus from the grave, Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25)

After the resurrection, Jesus seemed to be always starting with the word “peace”. We catch him repeating himself, that first day with the disciples. “Peace! Peace!”

When Jesus said “peace” the second time, he began to give his disciples some gifts and instructions. I think it’s not out of line to look at those gifts and instructions as playing a part in the peace he gives to us.

These gifts are his arsenal and strategy. Even peace is part of his arsenal. All of these gifts are his resources for us in the good fight.

I think I should say something about peace, first. Peace, in the Bible, means “well-being”. Peace is a kind of healthiness and thriving. You have peace when things are working well inside you, no matter how things are working on the outside.

Of course, there is an outward peace too. In the outward peace, in a nations peace, in a world truly at peace, everything works. Everything and everyone thrives. We don’t always see a lot of that in our world. That kind of peace will be the rule only when God creates a new heaven and a new earth.

Right now, by the word peace, I mean a spiritual health within. Things are working well in your soul. Also, peace means that things are working well between you and others or, at least, you are relating to others in a healthy way, whether they relate back to you in a healthy way or not.

Even on the cross, Jesus had this kind of peace. This is part of the peace that we need, and that Jesus gives.

The kingdom of God will be a kingdom of peace, because everything in the kingdom of God will work in healthy ways. There will be no injustice. There will be no judging or lording over others. People will serve and take care of each other. People will be free to grow and develop their gifts without fear.

Peace in the church is supposed to be exactly like that. Peace in the church can be seen where the grace of God is evident. People serve and care for each other. People grow together spiritually and in their ability to use their gifts, and there is plenty of wisdom and mercy spread around.

Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21) “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

There is peace in being “sent people”. It means that wherever you go you have a purpose. You have a mission. You have a mission to your family and neighbors. You have a mission to people who are completely different from you, to people who are strangers, and to people you may never meet. You have a mission to people you disagree with, and you have a mission with people who are in conflict with you. You are always sent.

Sometimes we don’t want to be sent. We want to pursue our own priorities. We want to be on our own, and to be independent, and we want to be uncommitted (or at least selectively uncommitted). If this is what we want, then we won’t receive the peace that Jesus is reaching out to give us: the peace he wants to breathe into us.

Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Jesus was sent from the heart of God. In the first chapter of John, John tells us, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side (or the Father’s bosom); he has made him known.” (John 1:18)

The One and Only is Jesus, who came to earth from the Father’s side, taking up our human nature. We have to be sent from the heart of the Son who is in the heart of his Father. We have to serve where we are sent, knowing the very heart of God. We have to know what it means to say, “God so loved the world.” This is an essential part of our arsenal: the arsenal of the wounded hero Jesus.

We are not sent just to serve any old way that suits us. Jesus was sent as the incarnation of God; as God present in the flesh. We are sent to incarnate Christ. We are sent to be the hands, and the feet, and the voice of Jesus in the world around us.

We can only do this, though, if Christ has taken us, and sent us from his own heart. We have to be sent from his love if we are ever going to embody it. His love is grace, and the best grace is freely given. The best grace is unconditional.

“And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is the Giver of Life, the Breath of Life.

The first time anyone in the Bible breathed into a person to give them life was in the story of the creation of the first humans. In the second chapter of Genesis it says this: “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7) The older translations say that God’s breath, or Spirit, made the man (the human) into a living soul. I like that translation. The ancient people thought of souls.

In partnership with Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is an agent of creation. In the creation, in the Book of Genesis, only of humans is it said that their soul is something that God has directly breathed into them. Other scriptures tell us that there is some way that all other creatures have their life from God’s Spirit. But Genesis tells us that our life is different from any other creature. What God has breathed has made us into living souls in his image.

Sin robs us of the true life of the soul. Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into his disciples to make them truly alive, spiritually and personally alive, as they (and we) were created to be. Jesus made them alive within, in a way that they could never have imagined on their own.

Peace comes from Jesus breathing into you. Jesus breathes a presence that makes you alive in a way that you could never guess beforehand.

Without the breath of the Holy Spirit we can act like good people. We can act and talk like religious people, but there’s no true life in it.

Without the Holy Spirit, we are only a bare image of life, just a picture; maybe even just a cartoon (or a stick drawing) of life. Without the Holy Spirit, we are only play acting; and we will always be afraid of being found out. We can’t have peace that way.

We are sent, simply, to be truly alive; to be real, genuine people, each in our own unique way but, most of all, in God’s way: Jesus’ way.

Jesus said, “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20:23) The best way you can forgive another person is to give them Jesus, and also to be Jesus for them.

Real forgiveness, the most important forgiveness, comes from God. Jesus is saying, “If you let someone know about me, then they can experience forgiveness. If you don’t let someone know about me, then they may never experience true forgiveness.”

But, in order to have peace, and to share peace with others, we need to know that there’s a proper time to speak of Jesus, and there’s also a proper time to simply be Jesus. To know the gospel, sometimes, people need something besides talk. The Holy Spirit will change you into a real, living person who can know the difference between the time for talk and the time for service.

Then the Holy Spirit will show you when other people need some explanation from you, to explain why you are so different. Then you have the chance “to give a reason for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:15)

There is something important about Jesus’ using his resurrection as the time to give his disciples their instructions and their arsenal for bringing forgiveness into the world. You can’t have real forgiveness without the resurrection.

If there was only the cross, and no resurrection, then you would have only the kind of forgiveness that brings pain and guilt. Without the resurrection, you would have a sacrifice for sins without any victory.

Forgiveness is so hard, and so costly, that some people will say that they can forgive, but they can never forget. So, their forgiveness always carries a chip on its shoulder. It gives comfort and peace to no one.

Forgiveness is costly, but real forgiveness needs victory. The resurrection takes the cross to the next step. The cross forgives sins, but the resurrection reverses the effects of sin. It brings true change.

This is a mystery, but this is why the Bible can say that God not only forgives sin, but even forgets it. I can’t explain this, but God speaks through the prophet Isaiah in order to say this: “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” (Isaiah 43:25)

We feel lost because we can’t forget what we regret. Peace comes when we know that God has forgotten what we regret. Then this new life calls us to forget as well. Or this new life gives us the gift of acting as though we have forgotten.

There comes a time when we are told by God to forget our own sins, and to forget the sins of others. That gives us (and them) God’s peace.

We are sent from the heart of God. We are breathed into by the breath of the Holy Spirit of Life. We are people of forgiveness, who can bring the message of forgiveness to others.

These are the trophies and the arsenal of a wounded Savior who give his awards to us. These are the trophies of a risen Savior, who enlists us in a war that’s already won. This is the power of the resurrection for the life we are living today. If we believe, then we will have this new life in Jesus’ name. We will have it now, and we will have it forever.