Pushing Boundaries - The Shared Life

Preached on Sunday, July 10, 2016

Scripture reading: Acts 2:36-47

There was a man who finally let his friend drag him to a Bible study, and what surprised him most was that he actually enjoyed it. He told the people he worked with about it the next day: “It was amazing. None of us knew anything and we all taught each other!”

Orange County California Coast
June 2016

In the beginning of what we call the church, being a follower of Jesus was a little bit like that. Everything was a surprise. The apostles were in charge, but they had no idea what would happen next. They had no idea what they would do next.

Peter didn’t know he was going to preach that sermon we just read the end of. He didn’t know that anyone was going to listen to him. He didn’t know that following Jesus was going to be like running through a series of explosions.

One of my favorite Christian jokes is this. Do you know how to make God laugh?

Tell him your plans.

After Jesus was crucified, after the disciples thought that Jesus’ plan had failed, Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus was stronger than death. Jesus must have had a good laugh over the plans of the godly people who had crucified him. What a surprise he gave everyone!

Let’s say that this was the first really big surprise? So then the disciples planned to watch Jesus conquer the world and rule as King in Jerusalem, which is what they had hoped for all along. Jesus had surprised them by dying, and then by rising from the dead; king of the world.

It’s as if Jesus laughed at this plan, because his next move was another surprise. Jesus promised to be with them always; and he did this by flying up to heaven, and leaving them on earth.

For at least the next few minutes, they expected him to come back with an army of angels to become the king of the world. But there were only a couple angels and these told them to stop looking up at the sky and standing around for Jesus. The reminder was for them to go back to Jerusalem to wait for the Spirit of God to come and fill them up.

Well, Jesus had told them that the next big thing coming was that the Spirit of God would make them able to be witnesses for him all over the world. The Spirit would enable them to speak for Jesus and to be the living evidence of Jesus to the world.

So when the Holy Spirit came, like wind and fire, into the room where they were praying, they went out onto the street, and some people said they were acting and sounding like babbling drunks. That was a surprise. Then Peter said that that couldn’t be true, because it was only nine o’clock in the morning. And so, by surprise, Peter gave the first sermon joke. And so, three thousand people believed that Jesus (for whom a lot of them had shouted for him to be crucified) was the true king of the kingdom of God.

What could be more natural? Or else, what could be more completely unexpected and unplanned? Jesus had always been the master of surprise, and he was still doing it.

I would say that the really big change, the really big surprise, after the Holy Spirit filled the disciples, was that Jesus, the master of surprise, was making his followers, and their life together, into a great big surprise.

The first surprise after the surprise of Pentecost, and all those new followers of Jesus, was the surprise of their new life together: this shared life.

There are about ten different components to that new life; that shared life, and that’s too many to talk about now. One of those things I have noticed is the presence of words like: “together”, “everyone”, “all”, “anyone”, “common”, and most of all “fellowship”.

Fellowship is the key issue for me today. It’s a strong word and Christians both overuse it, and scale it back, and weaken it. The word, in Greek, is “koinonia”. The root of the word appears a second time in our reading where Luke says that “all believers were together and had everything in common.” Later on, in the fourth chapter, Luke says this: “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions were his own, but they shared everything they had.” (Acts 4:32)

I’ve seen some of that sharing between you and me, since I crashed my car, and I have been offered multiple cars, if I need them.

In Spanish the famous phrase for sharing hospitality is: “Mi casa es su casa.” My home is your home. The first followers of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit meant that literally.

There were special circumstances and special needs that made that sharing necessary, but there are many times when we refuse to do what’s necessary. You’d be surprised (or maybe not) how many churches choose not to do what’s necessary.

The big surprise, and the actual miracle, was that the Holy Spirit made the merely necessary into the possible. And the Holy Spirit took what was possible and made it actual. The Holy Spirit inspired his people to do a human miracle. The Spirit made the life of his people into a miracle of partnership.

Even “partnership” is too weak a word for koinonia. The people of Jesus (the people of the Holy Spirit) belong to each other. That’s what fellowship and the shared life means.

If I said that I own you, I would be completely off base on this belonging thing. There are people (including some Christians) who think they own other people; or they think they own their church.

Koinonia just means that I belong to you and you belong to me.

Maybe being family would be another way of saying it. In some churches they call each other brother and sister.

I believe that this shared life goes much farther than the brothers and sisters of a family. Although the early church also thought of themselves as brothers and sisters within a common family. It’s much more than a church thing. When you read the Book of Acts, you can see that the first followers of Jesus saw the whole world that way. Surely this is why their partnership enjoyed “the favor of all the people.” (Acts 2:47)

I can’t say “I own you” but I can say “I owe you”. If I am full of the Holy Spirit (who is also the Spirit of Jesus) I will start looking at everyone I meet and think: “I owe you. I owe you Jesus.” That is part of our belonging to each other and it’s even part of our belonging to the world.

In the next chapter, Peter and John were going to worship in the Temple and they saw a lame beggar begging for charity. The beggar looked at them and asked them directly for money. It was how he made his living.

This was part of the faith of the Jewish people, to give to those in need. Those in need were needed by everyone else so that they had someone to give to. This continues to be part of the Jewish faith: you need to give to the needy, so the needy are completely necessary if anyone else is going to express their devotion to God.

With Peter and John, a first, quiet miracle happened. Luke tells us that “Peter looked straight at him, as did John.” (Acts 3:4) They experienced a miracle of looking and seeing. They looked at the beggar and they saw a person to whom they were going to give Jesus. “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.” (Acts 3:6)

When the Holy Spirit fills you, you look at other people and you say to yourself: “I owe them Jesus.”

This is the life the first followers of Jesus shared. This is what made some people fear them, and hate them. This is also what made many people love them. This was the “koinonia” that the people of Jesus shared. It was the new life that they owed to everyone.

When we look at the people of faith around us, the miracle of looking at them and really seeing them shows us that we belong to each other. That’s what we see. When we look at the people who are not in touch with the greatness and beauty of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the miracle of looking at them and really seeing them shows us that we belong to them and that they belong to us.

We owe them Jesus. This comes from the gift of the shared life, and that life comes from Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

It doesn’t come from you or me. It is a miracle. It’s a miracle that comes from something real. It comes from what Jesus has done. It comes from the cross. It comes from Jesus dying for your forgiveness and mine, and for everyone we see, when we really see them.

It’s in the message that Peter preached on the street.

It involves repentance. It begins there, but repentance is never a thing you leave behind, because you have built your life on it. The foundation of our life is Jesus, but repentance is the first layer on that foundation. Our life, built on Jesus has to be Jesus-shaped. But it also has to stay repentance-shaped. And the shared life depends upon repentance. There is no other way that we can succeed at belonging to each other.

In the Old Testament Hebrew, repentance means turning around, making an about face, and retracing your steps, and going backward. In math, you often check your work, and fix it, by doing it backwards. Repentance means the willingness to change.

The Greek word for repentance means to get a new mind. It means leaving your old mind and your old heart, and getting new ones. We can never succeed at living a shared life without this.

The forgiveness of sins is a powerful gift that comes from Jesus wounded, and bleeding, and dying for us. For me, firming up my commitment of my life to Jesus required me to say “yes” to that gory and bloody mess on the cross. Since he did that for me, I can’t say no to him. I can’t say no to that.

Being forgiven, I must forgive others, and this can be so hard to do. That doesn’t matter. Because of Jesus, I owe forgiveness to others and to you, and you owe that same debt of forgiveness. The shared life is impossible without that power.

The gift of the Holy Spirit is the power of God and the work of Jesus. With this, all things are possible. If we share this among ourselves we will be changed. We owe this to each other. But we also owe this to the world. Jesus and his Spirit have made this necessary, if we want to live the life to which they call us.  

The Lord’s Supper tells us what we owe to each other and to the world around us. It also gives us what we owe. The Lord’s Table is the gift of Jesus. Jesus has given it to us as the place where we meet him and receive, by faith, a new shared life: a life we share with him, and with each other, and with the world.

Freedom and the Gospel (Second Edition)

Preached on Sunday, July 3, 2016: This is a slight re-editing of an earlier sermon from 2011.

Scripture readings: Leviticus 25:8-13; Romans 8:1-21

Flags blowing around Desert Aire/Mattawa WA
July 2016

We can’t understand what it means to be a Christian unless we know what it means to be free. Freedom is not the most common word used in the Bible to describe a Christian, but freedom (in the Bible) is just as important as any other word to describe who we are, and what God intends us to be. The word freedom is just as important as any other word in the Bible to help us understand the Good News of Jesus, and new life that comes from Jesus.

The good news of Jesus dying on the cross for the sins of the world, and his rising from the dead to defeat the power of sin and death, is God’s fulfillment of a promise he made to the world many, many times through the people of Israel. It’s the central promise of the Old Testament. And the promise has always been about freedom.

In the Garden of Eden, our human race rebelled against God in the desire to be our own gods and goddesses. (Genesis 3:5) It was a rebellion to make ourselves smart enough to be independent, so we could be in charge.

In a sense, our rebellion was about freedom, because we thought that the freedom for which God had made us was not nearly enough. When we rebelled for the sake of our own brand of freedom, we altered human nature. We became a hereditary race of rebels and failed gods. 

This is not the way to freedom. This is not the way to the sort of freedom that brings any meaningful, lasting happiness.

Every new generation has been born with their parents’ addiction to this ancient rebellion. The patterns of human life show our slavery to this addiction. And yet, in that same garden, God promised that there would come a time when the human race would be set free from slavery.

The promise was brief, and simple; and it was made (strangely enough) by God to the devil, who had taken the form of a snake. God promised that a time would come when a descendant of Adam and Eve would crush the devil and his power. God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) A human would be hurt and, by being hurt, he would kill the devil.

Jesus was terribly hurt by the devil, working through human powers, on the cross. Jesus was hurt to the death. But he rose alive. He can no longer be hurt or defeated. He’s infinitely free.

The devil is the defeated one. We can rightly call him a dead man walking. The devil and the rebellion he led are defeated and in retreat.

Jesus in his hurt, and in his rising, sets us free from the devil, and from sin and death. Jesus plants his Holy Spirit in those who trust him, and the Spirit has the power to plant the sacrifice and victory of Jesus in us.

Through what Christ has done for a fallen world, and for each one of us, the Holy Spirit has the authority to write our personal declaration of independence from the power of the devil, and from the power of sin, and death: and this is exactly what he has done. This is the meaning of what Paul writes to the Christians in Rome: “Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of Life has set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2)

In the Gospel of John (8:36) Jesus says, “If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.” So, if we belong to Jesus, we ought to know what it means, and what it feels like, to be free.

But freedom is confusing. Sometimes the rebel nature, lurking in us all, jumps at the chance to be confused about freedom. Our confusion about freedom gives us an excuse to go back to our old addiction. There are so many advantages that come from the excuse of confusion.

Sometimes freedom seems to be the exact opposite of what Christians are about. Being Christian seems to be about rules and not freedom.

If you think about it, though, freedom needs rules. The old radio news-man, the late Paul Harvey, would say, “Freedom without self-discipline is anarchy.” Freedom needs priorities.

My grandpa Evans had an insight into the danger of being confused about freedom. He had a saying he used, when someone passed him on the highway in dangerous circumstances. If someone passed him on a curve where no one could possibly know what was coming, or if someone passed on a straight-a-way where anybody could see the cars approaching without the room to pass, he would say, “That guy is in a hurry to his own funeral.”

I drive fast, but I am very cautious about passing, most of the time. I also try to always stop in time, but that clearly doesn’t work. We all know people who, in the name of freedom, are in a hurry to their own funeral.

The sin, and the defeat, and the slavery that came out of Eden began when human beings decided to set up shop as their own little gods and goddesses. They wanted the failed freedom of being in charge, and of being at the center of their own lives. (Genesis 3:5-6)

Everybody is tempted this way. Some people try to pretend they are their own little gods and goddesses by living like they’re in a hurry to their own funerals. Others are in a hurry to the funeral of their relationships with the people who love them and count on them. They’d rather have what they want, the way they want it, than have real love. They kill the freedom that comes from trust and hope. They’d rather keep their false freedom.

Good people are different. It is easy for good people to be tempted to use goodness as a mask. Without admitting or facing what they’re doing, they act like little gods and goddesses by using a bunch of rules to give them the right to sit in judgment on others. They use the mask of goodness to control and wound others.

It all comes from the same old motivation. It’s all part of the same natural reflex of our slavery to the old rebellion of Eden. Paul wrote most of his letter to the Romans to warn his friends of this danger. If we belong to Jesus we will learn to listen to his friend Paul.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, the work done for us by Jesus becomes part of us. The personality of Jesus becomes part of us. It motivates us and grows in us. It’s not like being brainwashed, or having part of your brain removed. It isn’t like being bullied by someone bigger, and tougher, and smarter than you are; although God is bigger, and tougher, and smarter.

It is more like finding a friend and finding your real self that was lost in Eden long before you were born. And that friendship, and that lost self, fit you so well that you will never be happy without them again.

Paul describes the new self that is really your true and long-lost self. He says that the Holy Spirit makes it possible, and the Spirit doesn’t interfere with your real freedom when he gets this new life growing in you. It is life in the image of God, and you were created for a life in the image of God in the first place. Your long-lost self is your long lost freedom.

Paul says that the image of God planted in you by the Holy Spirit looks like this: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

We stop thinking about rules that hold us in a vise, or laws that others are always using to judge us when we fail. The Spirit gives us a holy freedom.

When the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives we stop thinking about rules and we start thinking about Jesus. We start thinking about the love of God, and how we desire to love God with everything in us, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Spirit brings Jesus into us. We grow in our freedom to love God, and our neighbor, and even ourselves in this new life.

Martin Luther, one of the great reformers of the church five hundred years ago, wrote something about all of this that is so good that (if you have never heard it before) you need to hear it, and think about it. Luther wrote: “A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none, a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone.” This is the freedom of being a Christian. This is the freedom of belonging to Jesus.

This leads us to the Book of Leviticus and the amazing principle of The Year of Jubilee. In Old Testament times, if you lost everything, and if you lost every legitimate way of supporting yourself and your family and, if your relatives had no way of helping you, you only had two options. One was to become an outlaw and live by robbery and murder: and that was forbidden.

The other option was to become a slave. Then someone with resources would take you in and provide for you, in return for your labor.

But God’s law for God’s people required that anyone who bought you would only have you and your labor for six years. When the six years were over and the seventh year came, you had to be restored to freedom (if you wanted it), because God’s people are supposed to be free. (Exodus 21:2-11; Leviticus25:39-43) When your slavery was over, you recovered your long-lost self. You found your true freedom-self.

In the Old Testament world, land was the symbol of freedom and dignity. When the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, each family received an allotment of land that was supposed to remain with that family forever.

This allotment of land represented their inheritance and their resources as children of God, as the people of God. It stood for their relationship with the God of freedom who set them free from centuries of slavery in Egypt.

Sometimes a family would get into so much debt that they had to sell part of their land, or all of their land. It would be bought by a more fortunate neighbor. But there was supposed to be a year of jubilee, every fiftieth year, when every family that had lost their inheritance, as the people of God, would have it completely restored to them.

To be among the people of the land was to be free, and to have your land restored to you was like receiving your long-lost self, the dignity of the children of God who had their rightful and equal place among all the rest of God’s people. But there is no record, anywhere in the Bible, of this law ever being kept.

Even though it was never kept, it was never forgotten. It was a symbol of the freedom promised by God all through the Bible.

The year of Jubilee is a symbol for Jesus, who restores to us the life of the image of God for which we were created. Jesus is the Jubilee. Jesus is our freedom.

But Jesus also lives in us in order to live through us. You can’t understand the good news of Jesus unless you understand the old law that the people of Israel never kept.

The people of God were expected to form a freedom-giving environment, not just for themselves but for everyone.

Land, in the Old Testament, gave you freedom. Land was the means to be your full self. In a sense land gave you dignity, and resources, and abilities: and these came from God, the real owner of the land. (Leviticus 25:23) And this helps us understand the meaning of freedom.

Our full self was designed by God to have the resources (and the means) of focusing outward. Our real self was designed to have the ability of caring for others beside ourselves. Our full self was created to love God; and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Perfect love is freedom.

The truth is that this full, many-sided love can only be given by you to others when you, yourself, are restored to your long-lost land, or to your long-lost self. In Christ you are given the dignity, and resources, and abilities that you need to live the full life of love, and you are able to help those who have not been restored to their long-lost life, and freedom, and dignity.

Now we have to remember that, in the Old Testament, freedom and dignity were things that were lost and restored, over and over again, in times of famine, and in times when Israel was occupied and ruled by its enemies.  The freedom of each slave came in the seventh year, and the restoration of the land was supposed to come every fiftieth year.

If these laws were followed they would have involved everyone in the practice of planning and preparing for freedom, for themselves and for others. Setting people free, and restoring them to their landed dignity would have become a way of life. It would have formed the very spirit of their community and their nation.

God’s people were supposed to form a community where the freedom and dignity of others was the natural concern of everybody. As a body they would know that the gift of freedom was being given to someone every day.  Everyone would be counting the years and the days for someone’s freedom.

The church is called to be nothing less than that. Are we working for the freedom of others? Are we giving others the opportunities they need? Are we giving others the encouragement and the patience they need to find the freedom of Jesus?

Now, in the Old Testament, this freedom was not only a matter of words. It was very practical. It involved labor, and money, and land, and the will to do something with it.

In the New Testament, the people of God, the people of the church were concerned about very practical issues. They were concerned about slaves and masters, workers and employers. They were concerned about the role of marriage and family. They were concerned about the poor. They were concerned about victims of disasters, and so they raised funds for hunger relief in the Holy Land. They visited the sick. They visited people in prison.

They were concerned with how to play a part in their society. They thought about how to live with the laws of the land and how to relate to the emperor and his government. They were concerned about laws, and rights, and justice. Paul was concerned about his right to be properly tried when he was arrested and jailed. (Acts 25-26) 

His friends and their churches cared about this too. They all cared about these things because their freedom and the freedom of others were at the heart of the matter: because, through Jesus Christ, they knew the God of freedom.

In the United States of America, we have a tradition of freedom that owes a great debt to the founding generations of our nation. Those founders were raised and educated in communities, and in an environment, that were deeply rooted in the Bible.

In the events that led up to our Declaration of Independence, and our war for independence, and the writing of the constitution, they were very worried and serious about what kind of nation they were creating. They wanted to design a nation of freedom; a national community that nurtured freedom and dignity for everyone.

They knew that we would not survive as a nation of freedom if our citizens only cared about being the enjoyers of freedom. They knew that our laws and our customs would have to allow freedom, and to teach freedom, and (as much as possible) to require our citizens to make the effort of acting and living like freedom-minded people, and to be loving freedom-givers.

They knew that Americans would have to be people who spent time, and energy, and resources (and even their lives) helping people into freedom. In one tiny way, Benjamin Franklin helped establish a free, public lending library to educate the people of Philadelphia, because he knew from personal experience that education was essential for freedom.

One of my great-great grandfathers came to America from Great Britain around 1850. He came here with practically nothing. It took him a while to get settled. His family back in the British Isles had a number of different trades. One of them was candy-making.

On first arriving, my great-great grandfather worked as canal digger. Then he worked in a starch factory, which was much better than digging canals. Eventually he started a business as a candy-maker, but he also worked as a part-time missionary, teaching in a Methodist Sunday school. In those days Sunday schools were established to teach the factory children who weren’t able to go to the regular schools during the week.

There were no child labor laws. Many children worked six days a week (just as most grown-ups did) and they had only Sundays free. Some of these children wanted to learn how to read, and write, and do arithmetic, so they went to a Sunday school where my great-great grandfather, and others, taught them.

Doing this would set them free. It would open up whole new chances for freedom in their lives. My great-great grandpa also taught them how to live well, and he taught them about Jesus who would give them the strength and the will to find that better life; the life of freedom.

He taught them about Jesus who would lead them to an even greater freedom, an everlasting freedom: the freedom of the gospel, the good news of God. In that freedom, those children would learn, like my great-great grandfather, to use their time, and their money, and their energy to be givers of freedom, and the nurturers of the freedom of others.

If we know Jesus, then we will be lovers of freedom, and we will work to make this freedom real for others. If we know Jesus very well, then we will want our communities and our nation to enable and nurture true freedom for everyone.

Pushing Boundaries: The Spirit-Prepared Life

Preached on June 6, 2016

Scripture readings: Ephesians 4:1-16; Acts 1:1-14

The 2016 Wahluke High School Valedictorian, Guadalupe Abarca, made a statement that is so normal to hear at any graduation, and yet it is very important. She said, “I believe this class will push boundaries to make this world a better place, whether in large or small ways.”

Photos at White Bluffs, Hanford Reach Nat'l Monument
May 2016

In the Book of Acts, Jesus, just before he returned to the command-post of heaven, called his people to push boundaries. Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Is this a calling or an order? Is it a prediction or a challenge? “You will be my witnesses.” You will do it.

Somehow, I seem to remember a phrase from when I was a kid, and maybe it comes from the old World War Two Prison Camp comedy “Hogan’s Heroes”. My friends and I used it on each other for fun. A German officer said (in an American imitation of a German accent), “You vill do it; und you vill like it!”

Jesus says, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” It’s as if Jesus gave us a crazy target laid out more or less flat on the ground of this round earth. The bull’s eye is where we stand and we find that the target is as big as the world; maybe as big as the universe. To hit the mark, and win, means going out, as far as you can. It’s a crazy target.

We Christians get the target completely wrong. You see how it is. Maybe it’s Jesus’ fault. Jesus is the bull’s eye. Jesus is the center. We come to Jesus. We find his love. Our target is the center.

No, his love finds us. And we find ourselves with Jesus at the center. Then Jesus does his magic (his sleight of hand) and the mark, the bull’s eye, moves to the outside. Who can play this game?

You see how we get it wrong. Jesus is the center, but we start out as Jesus’ target; Jesus’ mark. It’s hard to be an intense follower of Jesus (an intense Christian) unless we see how the target works for us; how (without Jesus) we are farthest out from the center, until Jesus hits us with his arrow of love. (Jesus is the best cupid.) But, without that, we are (each one of us, in our own way) one of the farthest out.

The great British preacher of more than a century ago, Charles Spurgeon, expressed this feeling of being farthest out. Spurgeon said, “While others are congratulating themselves, I have to lie humbly at the foot of Christ’s cross and marvel that I am saved at all.”

Charles Spurgeon was only 15, and he was a very, very good boy, when he met the living Jesus, but Spurgeon knew his own heart. And he knew that all human hearts, and every human life, have the same deep need. All humans are, in some way, furthest out, and they need to be found and given meaning by the infinite love of Jesus.

We never know that we have been farthest out until we understand why Jesus chose a cross as the only way to reach us, and hold onto us, and change us. We never understand what all people need until we know that only an arrow in the form of a cross can go the whole distance; all the way to the farthest out. We never understand what people need until we know that this arrow is never meant to hit anyone, except in the sense of winning them and loving them.

What brings this out (what powers us to understand, and motivates us to want to take Jesus’ arrow to those who are farthest out) is the Holy Spirit. We never understand this crazy game, and this crazy target of Jesus, until the Holy Spirit fills us.

The disciples are a good lesson for how it is with us. The Spirit was with them. Jesus was working on them with the Holy Spirit. We read that Jesus instructed them through the Holy Spirit. (The Holy Spirit is the life-giving power of God.) The Holy Spirit makes weak things powerful. The Spirit makes dead things, or inanimate things, alive.

The infinite love of God, in Jesus, is a living thing that can’t live in us until the Holy Spirit gives us enough life, within ourselves, to receive it. The infinite love of God, in Jesus, is a living thing that can’t reach out, through us to others, until the Holy Spirit gives us the living heart and the living will to reach out to others, even to those who seem farthest out.

Jerusalem, all Judea, and Samaria, and the ends of the earth are like rings of a target that really has an almost infinite number of rings.

Here the crazy target changes again. Here we are at the center again. Once again the whole point is not to stay in the center. Just as shooting at a target and hitting the bull’s eye is hardest, when you’re standing away and aiming at the target from a distance; so it is true that, when you are at the center, and the game is to shoot farthest out, then the farthest out is the hardest shot, and we don’t want to do it. We don’t even want to try. We pretend that aiming at the center (where we are) is best.

That’s one reason why the disciples asked Jesus for the target of restoring the kingdom to Israel. That was a model for a different target where it was best to live at the center and let the farthest out come to you. That would be easy. And a lot of Christians want the model of the target to be the one where it’s good to stay in the center.

There is a lot to learn from Jesus’ crazy target. We are called to be witnesses. Surely the most important job of a witness is to provide evidence.

It’s our job to provide our evidence for Jesus to the world. We are called to start by aiming at the center, closest to where we are. This part of the target is the part of the world that includes our families, and our friends, and our neighbors.

This model for the target means gradually moving out, geographically. We actually do this because we give our resources, including our money, and this supports mission around the world.

The churches of the early disciples helped to support Paul, and the other apostles, and the other witnesses, who went farther and farther out from the center. The Book of Acts tells us about Christians trying to fill the world with the message of Jesus who does fill all the world, and who wants to fill all the hearts of all the people in the world.

The Holy Spirit gets his way with us, and baptizes us with his truth, when we look at those who are nearest, and at those who are farthest, and (looking at both) we see people who will have a new life if they are filled with Jesus. Even the people we treasure the most may be full of so many great gifts, and yet they lack the gift of Jesus who would pull all their gifts together. Or maybe they lack the gift of Jesus in the same way that we may lack that gift: if we have the Holy Spirit teaching us, but our hearts are not being filled with the Spirit.

Jesus told his disciples not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the baptism, or the immersion, and the flooding, and the washing of the Holy Spirit. So we are often called to wait for the things that are most important. But you need to know that waiting is active. Waiting, in the Bible, is not like sitting in a waiting room.

Waiting means being ready for anything and, in this case, ready for something. Waiting is not about sitting, or puttering around, or doing what you normally do. I normally like to read. That’s how I like to wait. I like to read in a waiting room in order to get my mind off of what’s actually going to happen next. That’s not the waiting that Jesus asks for.

Waiting means praying, and praying means wanting, and also listening. When the disciples prayed, they realized that they also needed to be prepared. They needed to be prepared to be called and prepared to serve. That’s why they soon appointed a replacement for Judas, who had betrayed Jesus and hung himself. Waiting meant being ready to serve and being prepared to go into action, whatever that required of them.

So we are called to pray, and to pray for the Holy Spirit to find us ready for anything, and prepared for anything. They did that praying constantly, and they did it together. Each of us should have a consistent focus in prayer, not only for God to take care of us, but for God to show us how to be ready and prepared for what he wants us to do next.

But it’s not enough for you or me to do this on our own. I have to believe that Jesus wants us to pray for this together. It’s what he told his disciples to do, and our existence as God’s people is built on the same foundation as theirs. We are going to wait for what God wants us to do next by praying as a congregation, and learning (as we listen in prayer) to be ready and prepared.

We want to be ready and prepared by knowing, for sure, what Jesus has given us to live by; and by knowing how to share with others the difference that Jesus makes. We want to be ready and prepared for the crazy target of Jesus.

The disciples had trouble understanding the target. They liked staying in the center, and they didn’t even understand the center. Jerusalem was the holy city, the place where God focused his presence on his people. Jerusalem was the center, and yet it was also the place that was farthest out. Its people were the most resistant; just as we all are without the continual help of Jesus. Maybe you find the center of your own target and your own world to be the same way.

Providing evidence for Jesus by their words, and their lives, and their actions was not easy in Jerusalem, the center. You know this is not easy in our own centers. Our families and our friends who are not close to Jesus are a hard center to target.

And here the crazy target is easy to misunderstand again, because (as I have said) this is a target we don’t hit. The arrow of Jesus and the cross, and the change in our hearts because of him, are not things you can hit anyone with, although the other person may feel like you’re hitting them. If a witness gives evidence, then you are not hitting, but giving something to your target. Since the Holy Spirit is the power of God, and the power of God comes through Jesus, then you are giving them power, or offering them that power.

In that way, as witnesses, our job is to empower those who are closest to us. If we find that those who are closest to us are also farthest from us (as Jerusalem was) then our job is to empower those who feel farthest from us. It works either way.

Our own loved ones, neighbors, and friends need the empowerment that we have received, and Jesus says that the power of the Holy Spirit will make it possible to reach the outer limits and those who seem farthest from us. This can seem impossible, but the Holy Spirit empowers us and makes the impossible possible. This is what we believe.

The disciples believed this and it worked, even when they didn’t understand what they were doing. But their success, in the Spirit, was not easy. The Book of Acts tells us that every step of the way was strange to them. They were always moving into the unknown, and it was different every day.

This is the other strange thing about the crazy target of Jesus. The target in front of them was as big as the world, but there was another target within them. Jerusalem, all Judea, and Samaria, and the ends of the earth were not only boundaries “out there”. They were also boundaries within them. The boundaries were formed by what was familiar to them, and by what was unknown to them, and unwanted. These were the boundaries of where they were comfortable and where they weren’t.

The target of Jesus produced worry, and fear, and tension in the disciples. The Lord was requiring them to do today what they had never done before. Tomorrow they would have to do what they didn’t know how to do today.

They hit those boundaries right from the start. Even before they left Judea, which was the boundary of their comfort zone, they found themselves talking to the enemy Samaritans and the pagan Romans. (Acts 8 and 10) They were talking and worshiping with people they didn’t want to talk with, or worship with. They had to make decisions about how they needed to change what they did and how they thought, in order to meet the target of Jesus.

They had to push their boundaries. They had to let Jesus and the Holy Spirit push their boundaries for them. The Holy Spirit requires churches to change what they do, and how they think. The Book of Acts tells us this in every chapter.

To be filled with the Holy Spirit requires the waiting in prayer that will change us and make us ready and prepared for this. Or else, we may decide that what the Spirit calls us to is not for us. That is a decision for comfort, and comfort is nice, but comfort can be a far different thing from fullness. And that makes a difference.

Jesus died on the cross to give us a new life; a life free from everything that divides us from the love and purpose of God. He gives us a new life free from everything that divides us from the ability to truly love God, and to love others, and to love the whole world as God so loves it.

This new life begins with forgiveness and forgiveness feels a lot like comfort. But comfort is a word that originated from the idea of the strength and power to go forth and live.

The comfort that comes from the Holy Spirit always leads to the kind of life we find in the Book of Acts. In this life we have been made so alive by the power of the Holy Spirit that we grow, and we extend our reach. We reach out to others, and we change, because we have been made alive in Christ, and living things are always moving and changing.

Jesus is pushing our boundaries, and we are pushing the boundaries for Jesus.

That is what we are waiting for, and praying for, together: a new life that’s new every day: really new! running on the power of the Holy Spirit! Get ready for it to begin!

Remembering the Faithful

Preached on the Sunday before Memorial Day, May 29, 2016

Scripture readings: Psalm 77; Hebrews 11:1-3; 11:32-12:3

 Memorial Day is a day for remembering. That is what the word “memorial” means. We remember those who have died; not to hallow their dying (though death, itself, is holy ground). We remember those who have died in order to hallow their living.

Photos at White Bluffs, Hanford Reach National Monument
May 2016

It is easiest to hallow lives when those lives are in some way shaped by faith. Faith works on many levels. We were created for a life of faith and for a world where faith could be expressed in every kind of relationship.

The thing we call sin came from the decision to not live by faith. Our first parents were given a life in paradise by a loving God, and they chose to not have faith. They chose a life where they would not trust the most trustworthy source of love that they knew.

The people who live faithfully by faith, and who trust in something besides themselves show us what this world has lost. The root of all faith is faith in God, but we can show the power of faith in all our relationships and all our great loves: the love of God, the love of one dear person, the love of family and home, the love of neighbors and enemies, the love of country.

The people who have some kind of faith live in a way that makes hope real. They live in a world where reality seems dark, and yet they decide to live in such a way as if they see better things than this world shows. They see better things than other people see.

The heritage of people of faith is about lives not deaths, because their deaths are not the only point. The point is how they lived through to the end. Whether we are talking about life in a home, or a school, or a community; or whether we are talking about life in a hospital room, or a nursing home, or a battle field; there is a way to live all the way through, seeing what so many others don’t see.

The word of God teaches us about the heritage of the imperfection of the people of faith; so that we can see how they learned from grace, and were shaped by grace.

The word of God teaches us about the heritage of the variety of people of faith. It tells us of people going forth to live, or going forth to fight. It tells us that the call to join the life, or the fight, is the lot of all different kinds of people: husbands and wives, parents and children.

The heritage of the people of faith is the result of their choices: choices about family, choices about how we are called to serve and worship God, choices about how we are called to serve our country, choices of whether to blend in or stand out, choices of whether to fight or surrender, choices about where to stay or where to go.

The New International Version says: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” The King James Versions says: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

I like the older translation at this point. I think that older translators and earlier scholars knew more about the substance of faith, and were not blinded by our modern love of feelings.

Substance is about reality. Reality is real, whether we feel sure and certain about it or not.

Faith takes hold of a substantial reality that it cannot see. Then faith gives substance and reality to those invisible things. Faith builds our will, and our actions, and our way of life. Faith makes what we believe real substantial in our own lives, and faith makes what we believe real for the purpose of serving and blessing other people.

Faith is not about feelings of certainty. If faith is assurance, that’s because the assurance comes from outside of you. Faith comes from something real and substantial reaching into you and changing what you know, and how you live.

Faith is like the pipe that the old timers drove into the hillside behind their house, on their homestead, where a spring seeped out. That’s why they built their house there in the first place. The pipe in the hill connected to the spring, and (if that was a good spring) the water came out as if you had turned on a faucet and left it running forever.

That is the connection between faith and the reality of the life of God that comes to you through Jesus. The pipe let the reality come through. The pipe of faith lets the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen (hidden in the hill) come through.

Faith is about a living connection with things that are real, whether you see them, or feel them, or not. This is how the best life goes on. This is how ordinary, imperfect people become our heroes. This is how these heroes change our lives.

Here again, my Baci (my Polish grandma) is an example. Baci was always poor, and she didn’t have very many nice things, and she lived in a tiny apartment. Before I moved with my family to a small town in Northern California, we lived close to most of our relatives and, during the Christmas season, we always had several Christmases. One of the Christmases, every year, was always at Baci’s.

There was no fancy table for our Christmas feast. We all ate on TV trays, and the little kids ate on the floor, and there were hardly any Christmas decorations. But Christmas was just as real at my Baci’s as it was at any of the other Christmas celebrations we were part of.

Christmas, at Baci’s, was “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” My Baci will always be one of my heroes.

In families, and communities, and churches, and nations, the things that matter most are real even when people are struggling, or weary, or worried, or afraid. The things that make a family, or a community, or a church, or a nation continue to be real. They continue to be in force.

They just pass unseen, except for those who see with the eyes of faith and live accordingly. Those who live accordingly live by faith; and they do the things that are worth remembering. They are the heroes.

The mutual “substantiality” of faith and the things hoped for “realize” each other. They make each other real.

The most important part of our heritage is the story of the faithfulness of God; who continued to love a world that didn’t love him back, who died on the cross for a world that wouldn’t live by faith and trust in him. In Jesus we see that our God is a hero who does heroic things. The faithfulness of God makes him our hero.

The heritage of faith is also the story of a faithful memory: a selective memory; a “some-timers” memory.

This is what I mean. Are there terrible troubles, and hurts, and griefs to remember? Yes!

Are there gifts, and graces, and pleasures to remember? Yes, absolutely!

How do the bad things render the good things unreal? They don’t. So remember the gifts, and the grace, and the pleasure, and live accordingly.

Sometime or other you have smiled.  Sometime you have laughed. Sometime you have known that it was an easy thing to give thanks.

This is what the writer of the psalm meant, when he wrote, “To this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High.” (Psalm 77:10) The “right hand” is the hand of the handshake, or the hand raised high in blessing. The psalmist remembered the times when God had shaken his hand, and when the most important things were easy remember, and when faith saw things the most clearly.

A heritage of faith speaks to how we live in this world as individuals, as a church, as a community, and as a nation. Faith renders its judgment on the continual crises and dangers of this world. Faith decides whether we are doomed or not.

The news, and our politicians, often surround us with a message of continual crisis. Faith creates life by not surrendering to crises, and angers, and messages of doom.

Some communities are famous for their fighting. My home town was like that. You would hear about a meeting of the city council where a citizen invited a council member to step outside for a fight.  You would hear about shouting at a meeting of the church elders. Our town was famous to me, in my young days, for how many good projects and ideas could be destroyed by the envy and rivalry of others. My home town had a lot of churches, and a lot of Christians, but not so many signs or examples of faith.

There is a humble form of faith that comes from asking yourself what you would do in a “worst case scenario”. What is the worst thing that could happen? Then what would you do?

You can always do something. God designed the world so you can always do something: even if it is only to wait, and to watch, and to pray. But sometimes you can do much more.

In the little town where I served before I was called here, I was asked to fill a vacancy on the Park and Recreation District. I must have been on that thing for about ten years. I went on it because no one else wanted the job. I ended up being president for years. I have to confess that I never felt like I knew what I was doing. I made some big mistakes. I didn’t want to be doing it. I had no agenda. I had no plan. I didn’t want to take any side. I didn’t want to be against anyone. All I wanted to do was try to make good things happen, and to avoid making bad things happen. That’s all I wanted, and I still hope that was inspired by a desire that came from faith.

Then there is the faith that is shown when a person commits themselves to serving their country in the armed forces. Until my teenage years, the big war was World War II. When I was a kid playing war with my friends, World War II was the war we fought.

Every kid’s parents were affected by that war. Most of our dads were in the service during that war. It was the last truly unquestionable, noble war. Once we were in it, nobody doubted it. It was a war of faith, in its way.

That changed in the 1960’s. In 1966 the Vietnam War was getting fierce. I grew up in conservative places so, when “The Ballad of the Green Berets” hit the top of the music charts, in 1966, it was the favorite song of almost every boy in Live Oak. But even in Live Oak it was a questionable war. We had the sons of a college professor in our school, and we all knew that they were commie sympathizers.

The fact is they (the questioners) were on the winning side. Veterans came back from Vietnam and got heckled and spat at: never in Live Oak, but in other places. Heroes were not treated as heroes. Because of the draft, people who had not chosen to fight and lay their lives on the line did it anyway, at the bidding of their country, and they never got the respect they deserved.

My point in this: it takes faith to see the real value of the world. This world is a created and much died-for place; and it is full of created and died-for people. It takes faith to see that a country, such as ours, with such a great heritage, and with such a confused and conflicted present, means something far greater than it seems to be. Faith sees that those who serve their country are exercising a kind of faith that is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Their rightful place is in a cloud of witnesses.

The creation of our world has its roots in the invisible. That means it has its roots in God. And this world in which we live has been died for by Christ.

Even for those who don’t know Jesus, even for those who don’t believe in God, the people who live for others, and who give of themselves, and who even pay the ultimate price for their giving, are acting out a kind of faith in people, and in home, and in country that implies that all these things are far greater than they seem. A world that is created and died for means something, and these faithful givers and “sacrificers” have given of themselves for something far greater than they know.

 “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

Our world has a heritage that is invisible to many people. Our world, and all of life in it, exists in the shadow of the cross and the God who hung there for the sins of the world. Our heritage is the story of a Jesus-formed memory. He is the beginner and finisher of our faith. Jesus (truly human and truly God) joins together our faith and God’s faithfulness.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

If the life of faith is like a race, then Jesus is the prize we set our heart on. Jesus will make the race worthwhile. And our race will be a memorial race. We will run it well by remembering the many, many people who have run faithfully before us.