Pushing Boundaries - Spreading out the Body-Life

Preached on Sunday, August 14, 2016

Scripture readings: 1 Corinthians 12; Acts 6:1-7

I can remember back to when I was a baby. I can remember learning to walk, and being fed in my highchair, and I can remember having a bath in the kitchen sink.

Opening Day for Vacation Bible School
Desert Aire/Mattawa WA
Hund Memorial Park, Mattawa
August 8, 2016

I can remember being barely able to walk when I learned that God made the flowers in our yard, and God made the grass, and God made the sky, and God made me. So I also have a memory of a book my parents gave me when I was about two years old and that book was about becoming an older brother.

The book showed pictures of a very little boy looking at the crib being set up for a new baby in the family. The little boy learned that it would be his job to love, and play with, and help care for that baby.

And after we went to the hospital to pick up my mom and my first baby sister, I took my new job very seriously. I hope I did a good job for both my sisters, in turn; but I also confess that I did learn how to say the famous words: “It’s not fair!”

The first church in the world was still a baby church when it learned how to say: “It’s not fair!” It wasn’t a protest by older brothers and sisters, or by younger brothers and sisters. When the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the apostles, making them witnesses to Jesus on the streets of Jerusalem, we know, from the second chapter of Acts that there had to be both Hebraic Jews and Grecian Jews coming into the baby church at the same time.

It’s hard for us to define the difference between the two groups. Paul, who comes into the picture later, had part of his upbringing in the Greek city of Tarsus, on the Mediterranean coast of what is now the Turkish peninsula. Paul was fluent in Greek and he understood a little bit of Greek philosophy. He could quote Greek poets. (Acts 17:22-28)

But Paul, in one of his letters, described himself as “a Hebrew of Hebrews”. It would be simplest to say that his family raised him to be very, very Jewish; very much a Hebrew, Hebraic Jew. So he would have learned how to speak Greek, and to know how the Greeks thought, but not be culturally Greek. He didn’t identify with the Geeks, until God told him that he needed to identify with them in order to faithfully share Jesus with them.

The Grecian Jews had lived long enough in the Greek and Roman world to have assimilated themselves to it, even though their Jewish faith was so strong that it motivated them to migrate to the Holy City of Jerusalem so that they could live out their days in that special place. They were very Jewish in faith, but not very Jewish in their language and culture. They were spiritual tourists in a Hebraic world.

They didn’t quite fit in, and the two groups tended to cluster among themselves. The Grecian Jews tended to be just a little bit invisible to their Hebraic, very, very Jewish sisters and brothers in Christ, and they perceived that their people were a bit neglected, and “it wasn’t fair”.

That’s the background of the problem behind the story. An important part of the story is how this protest was handled. I want us to see that, and also to go on to the most important lesson. The most important part of the story was what the apostles, and the whole early church together, learned about ministry and mission in the body of Christ.

The handling of the protest was important. Maybe protest is too strong a word? I’m the one using the word protest. The Scripture tells us that the Grecian Jesus did this thing that could mean nothing more than murmuring and grumbling.

It wasn’t loud the way I could be when I thought my parents weren’t being fair. It was quiet. It was under the surface: just enough to so that they could fulfill their desire make themselves clearly heard, and just quiet enough (they thought) so that they couldn’t be blamed for what they were saying. They were trying to have it both ways.

The important point is that apostles didn’t let it stay quiet with the hope that the complaint would quietly go away. They dared to do the incredibly scary thing, and so they brought the problem out into the open; out in front of absolutely everyone.

They didn’t make excuses. They treated the problem as something that deserved an honest and direct and measurable solution.

At first sight it looks like they put the complainers in charge of the solution, because all of the committee of seven have Greek names, but that doesn’t prove anything. Most Jewish people had three names: their Hebrew name, their Greek name, and their Roman name.

But we have no idea of any Hebrew name, at all, for two of the original twelve apostles. Andrew and the first Phillip had perfect Greek names. And yet they were Jewish fishermen, or some such common thing.

In a strange way Jesus himself gave another apostle, with the very Hebrew name Simon, the famous Greek name Peter (or Petros), the rock. So Peter had a Greek name, but there was nothing Grecian about him.

The apostles called the whole church together (the whole fellowship no matter whether they were Hebraic or Grecian, and no matter whether they had Hebrew or Greek names). They called everyone together to work as one, in order to come up with nominations for the committee of seven. Surely the whole church (both the Grecian Jews and the Hebraic Jews together) came up with the list we are given in Acts.

All of this teaches us, as a church, to push beyond our familiar boundaries to value the people in our fellowship who might be the least like us, and think the least like us; on the condition that they have a good reputation, and are full of wisdom, and full of the Holy Spirit. We are taught to value them. We are taught to give them ministries among us, and to listen to them, and to learn from them.

And we are taught to not put this off. We are taught to push beyond our familiar way of being a Christian, right from the start, and to let others in.

 But the very most important part of this story is the discovery that the apostles made about themselves, and about their ministry, and what ministry should be in the church. The twelve apostles discovered that they couldn’t do it all. They saw that they had failed to do their job because they couldn’t do it all.

They needed to learn how to share the ministry. They had to spread the ministry to others if they truly wanted the church to be strong.

We lose sight of this because we have distorted the meaning of the word minister, and Christians have been distorting this word for a long, long time. The word minister has nothing to do with some concept of a thing that the world and the church calls “clergy”. Speaking as a Presbyterian, I want you to know that there is no mention of any such thing as clergy in any documents, or standards, or rules of the Presbyterian Church.

In the Presbyterian Church, clergy do not exist. I’m an elder. Who else, here, is an elder? Who’s the boss here? Jesus! We hope!

It’s also important to remember that, in our church, there are no rules or standards where anyone is ever called a “layman”. Sometimes that has been forgotten and it has needed correcting. Officially speaking, everyone in the church is a minister. Every follower of Jesus (every one of you) is in the ministry.

The word minister has been distorted to mean leader. It really means servant. The biblical concept, and God’s design for the life of his people (whether we call it our church, our congregation, our fellowship), is servanthood. And when you are a servant, you have to admit that you can’t do it all.

In families, who is the one who is the servant who tries to do it all? It’s usually the mother; isn’t it? But it always holds true: you can’t do it all. Health comes to families, and to mothers, when everyone is a servant.

As I got to a certain age in my childhood, I began to acquire jobs in my family: making my bed, keeping my room and closet straight, taking out the garbage, cleaning up after the dog, mowing the lawn and other duties as required. I stopped having to wash dishes because it gave my hands a rash and I was also allergic to rubber gloves: so I couldn’t do it all.

Some people think it sounds like the apostles looked down on delivering food to the widows. “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry (or the servant-work) of the word of God in order to wait on tables.” (Acts 6:2)

The real point is that they had been waiting on tables all along, and that they clearly weren’t good at it. Well, they weren’t good at doing it all.

Waiting on tables was actually noble work because caring for those in need is a big part of the Jewish faith, as well as the Christian faith. The reason why it is a big part of the Jewish faith is that it is a big part of the Old Testament law and prophets. The same standard applies to us.

When you look at the Jewish people, they are famous for their charities. They are required to take special care of widows, orphans, and even aliens, because God does. Deuteronomy says: “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothes. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19) These things are just as spiritual as serving the word of God. These things are just as spiritual as prayer.

The apostles saw they couldn’t do it all. They saw that they had to grow the ministry; share the ministry; spread the ministry. This sharing and spreading of the ministry became the model for the church.

Paul says it in First Corinthians: “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God who works all of them in all people. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)

I’ve called this new group of seven “the committee of seven” but there is no evidence for committees in the New Testament. The seven have no title, but even the title of apostle isn’t a title; not in the sense of holding office or having a job description.

It seems to be an office and a job description because of what the Book of Acts tells us about the process of choosing a replacement for Judas Iscariot; the one who betrayed Jesus and hanged himself. Judas’ role is traditionally translated as “office” in Acts 1:20, but the word simply means an area of oversight and responsibility.

They looked for a replacement among those who had been with Jesus from the beginning and who had met the risen Jesus in the flesh. Those were the people who had the authority that came from being first-hand witnesses. That was a level of authority that couldn’t last for more than a generation. And Paul, who had not followed Jesus, and who had not met the risen Jesus, in flesh and blood, became one of the next generation of apostles. Paul met the risen Jesus powerfully, but also spiritually.

That needs to be our authority. We need to meet the crucified and risen Jesus powerfully and spiritually. When we know Jesus this way, then we can be safely sent to do the servant-work of Jesus and be his witnesses through that servant-work.

The word apostle means a person who has been sent. All Christians are sent on a mission by the Lord. The apostles were only the first example of what it meant to be sent by Jesus, and we follow their example.

Even the apostles’ work is described as servant-work, because they have a ministry of the word of God and prayer. All ministry is servant-work; and we have to learn to be servants, or else we don’t know what it means to serve Jesus at all, and we don’t even know who Jesus is. Jesus called himself a servant and he told us that we have to be servants like him.

Children are good at asking the question: “Do I have to?” It’s our fallen human nature to think that being a servant is a form of punishment. Children start their life being totally served by their parents, and parents keep it all together by remembering that all the work of serving their children is not a punishment. As hard as that service can be for the parent; the power of that service is love. Servant-work is, or should be, love.

Well, we mix it up because, in families, we dish out servant-work as a form of punishment to children when they misbehave. We’ve all been given servant-work as punishment, and we know it. It’s a lesson that’s hard to forget.

Maybe the punishment of servant-work is a lesson to teach children the meaning of love. They are given the work because they haven’t learned how to love to the full measure of love. Servant-work teaches you what love is in a way that can only be gained by experience.

The servant-work of marriage can only be learned by living in marriage. The servant-work of parenting can only be learning through the experience of parent. Growing up to be the kind of human being that other human being want to be around can only come through the experience of servant work. Being a Christian and following Jesus can only be learned through the servant-work of ministry.

Maybe even parents, in the midst of their servant-work forget this, sometimes. Husbands and wives, in their lives together, sometimes forget that serving is loving and being served is being loved.

If we love Jesus we have to be servants of Jesus. If we love Jesus, we have to love each other, and that means we have to serve the servants of Jesus; and they are also called to love us by serving us.

This could be beautiful. As the servant-work was shared and spread among them, the followers of Jesus didn’t get weaker. They got stronger. Being a servant is part of the message. When they spread the ministry, and when they shared their servant-work more and more, the message got stronger and stronger. It says this: “So the word of God spread.” (Acts 6:7)

Being a servant isn’t easy. Taking food to those who have empty cupboards is a big challenge. The question is how to do it right, how to do it responsibly, and smartly, and compassionately, and wisely. It’s just as hard to do the nitty-gritty practical stuff as it is to do the stuff that seems to get the most attention. And all servant-work for Jesus, and for the love of others, is spiritual work that requires the fullness of the Spirit and wisdom.

All servant-work needs the Holy Spirit. All servant-work needs the mind and counsel of God. It all needs the inspiration and power of God. Whoever gets a slice of the servant-work needs to be clearly known for the fullness of the Holy Spirit working in them, and known for wisdom. I think that this suggests that they should be known for looking like Jesus, in their lives, because the Holy Spirit is also known as the Spirit of Jesus. (Romans 8:9)

The ministry of all Christians is servant-work. It is love built on the love of Jesus. Jesus said: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43-45)

Ministry is not an office or a job. Ministry is sharing the work of Jesus who served the world by dying for the sins of the world. Ministry is living and speaking the message of Jesus who served the world by dying for the sins of the world.

Ministry requires fellowship with this Jesus. Ministry means loving this Jesus, and being empowered by him to bring Jesus into the world through his servant-image in you, and in the family of Christ, the household of God, the church.

The people of Jesus made the message stronger and clearer when they spread out the ministry, when they opened the servant-work to more and more of the family of God. We are called to find ways to spread the ministry of going out into the world for Jesus. This is what I pray for and strain for with all my heart.

Each one of you is designed for the servant-work of ministry through the power and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps you already know what your ministry is, or what it might be becoming, and you need to tell us. Please tell me if I don’t already know it. Or else it is the work of all of us together to seek out what special work the Spirit wants us to spread to you and what work the Spirit wants you to spread to us.

This gift came to the church through the complaints of its members. It came through the honest admission that no one can do it all. It came through the ability to see what needed to be done. It came through the prayerful search for those who would share the calling with the help of the Holy Spirit. Let’s prayerfully search for those ministries, and let’s please put them into action.

Pushing Boundaries - The Gutsy Life

Preached on Sunday, July 31, 2016

Scripture reading: Acts 5:17-42

There was a family with two little boys, about eight and ten. They were full of mischief. That’s putting it nicely. Their parents were at their wits’ end, how to deal with these boys.

Each Photo Is Different:
May and June 2016

Then they heard that a minister in their town had a technique for straightening out kids like theirs. When they met with him, the minister asked to see the boys individually, and they sent their eight-year-old first.

The minister sat the boy down and asked him sternly, “Where is God?” The boy didn’t know what to say, and the minister repeated that same question louder, “Where is GOD?” The boy squirmed and the minister shouted, “WHERE IS GOD!”

The boy was scared to death. He ran home all by himself, and hid in the bedroom closet. His older brother went to be with him in the closet, and asked him what happened.

The younger boy answered, “We’re in big trouble this time. God is missing, and they think we did it!”

The Book of Acts is about the first followers of Jesus, and what their lives were like knowing that God is never missing. Jesus is the evidence of this. Jesus is God in the flesh. In Jesus, God came to be with us. He was born to be with us in life. He died for our sins on the cross in order to be with us in our sins and to take them upon himself. He also died for our sins on the cross in order to with us in our death. He rose from the dead to be with us in a life that is stronger than all evil and injustice; and stronger than death and stronger than hell.

Paul said it, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37) Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) The angel who opened the jailhouse doors for the apostles told them to “tell the people the full message of this new life.” (Acts 5;20) Wonderful words of life!

Now this life, following Jesus, and living as one in what the Bible calls “the church” is described all the way through the Book of Acts, and in all the letters of the apostles, and even the Book of Revelation. This life is described as a life together: “All the believers were one in heart and mind.” (Acts 4:32) It was also a life of miracles, with God, in Christ, constantly interfering in their lives in wonderful ways.

The old, full, traditional name of the Book of Acts is the “Acts of the Apostles”, but some people have wisely said that it should be the “Acts of the Holy Spirit”. It could just as well be called the “Acts of Jesus”. It’s about everything that Jesus continued to do, and to teach, after he was taken into heaven. (Acts 1:1-2)

In some way that you cannot understand until it happens to you, this life is a new way of life because it is simply life with Christ, and life in Christ. We belong to Jesus, and we are never alone. Again Paul says it in an amazing way: “For me, to live is Christ.” Then, the rest of Paul’s sentence is more amazing still, “and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

That whole sentence is very important, because it relates to the story we have just read in Acts. Jesus was with the apostles when the angel opened the jailhouse doors. Jesus was with them when they went back to share the wonderful words of life again, in the Temple, where they would be found and arrested again.

Jesus was also with them when they were being threatened with death, and when they all got the forty lashes less one; the standard maximum whipping, like the bloody whipping Jesus got before he carried the cross. They rejoiced over that whipping “because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name (the name of Jesus). (Acts 5:41)

You have to see that the angel opened the jailhouse door so that the apostles could be re-arrested and whipped till they bled. I don’t think the miracle happened because they had faith. I think the miracle happened because the Lord wanted to accomplish something. The Lord has a purpose, and part of that purpose was (and is) to make his kingdom come, and part of that kingdom coming needs to happen now; through us and in us.

There’s a sorting out that goes on in the coming of the kingdom now. The priests who had sent Jesus to be crucified didn’t seem to realize that they were guilty of shedding Jesus’ blood. The kingdom continued the process of sorting them out by letting them act out, more and more, who they truly were.

They were seeing the truth about themselves less and less, and that is part of the blinding that comes from sin, or what we might call the life of going our own way. They were seeing the truth about themselves less and less, but they were making themselves more and more into the very enemies of the kingdom of God that they would never have recognized in themselves. The truth was becoming truer and truer. And that’s part of the kingdom of God coming now.

For the apostles, Jesus, through his Holy Spirit, was making them more and more truly what he is. For the apostles, the kingdom of God was coming into their lives now, in order to make them more and more clearly part of the new life. More and more, Jesus was Lord, and Savior, and Christ in them.

In a period of about twenty-four hours, they were all free men, and they were arrested and jailed, and they were freed and sent back to certain arrest and to an uncertain fate, and they were all whipped until they bled.

It was all so unpredictable: so many ups and downs in twenty-four hours.  But it was a holy unpredictability. It was all in Christ.

In freedom, and in torture, and in danger of death, they were not in charge; they were not at the center of their own lives. Their lives were not about themselves. Their lives were about others and, most of all, their lives were about Jesus. The kingdom coming now meant that they were learning more and more who Jesus is, and that Jesus is good, and that Jesus can be praised.

This was not easy. They had to be willing to go back into danger. They had to bleed. They had to suffer. They had to say “yes”, and not find reasons for saying “no”. There were solid reasons for saying “no”, and they had to be determined to say “no” to saying “no”.

The scriptures are not only God’s words. They are God’s words to us. They are God’s words to you and to me.

These words in Acts tell you and me that it’s typical for the Lord to send his great joy and a holy arrangement of our lives, to include the sure and clear experience of his power, and love, and deliverance. It also tells you and me that it’s typical for the Lord to send his people into difficulties and troubles, and into dangers and pain.

Otherwise we would stop having the deepest unity and fellowship with those who don’t know Jesus. Otherwise we cannot be one with them, as Christ came to be one with us, and with the whole world.

In all of this, you and I are never alone. We have each other. Most of all, we have and share Jesus. Jesus (being Jesus) is Lord, and we have to always be ready to say “yes” to the next thing, because Jesus is Lord. We have to say “yes” and be willing to live into the next thing the way Jesus would have us to do.

In my life, I find that there is always something that needs my attention. Sometimes it wears me out to think about it. The Book of Acts presents us with an account of the Christian life where there is no pause, there is no let up. The next thing always comes promptly along, and the people of Jesus are always having to say “yes” to the next thing.

One of the disciplines in the prayer journal of the book our adult class is studying is the discipline of asking the Lord what to do next. What is the next thing?

It can be surprisingly difficult. But it’s good to visualize the next thing as God’s next thing, and say “yes” to it as such. It’s definitely the new life that the angel told the apostles to tell the people about. Like God’s holy unpredictability, it’s our form of a holy insanity that makes our offer of a new life credible and believable to others: our willingness to say “yes” to the next thing in a way that looks like Jesus.

We have learned, in Christ, to not find reasons for saying “no” to people and plans. We have learned, in Christ, to say “yes” to people and plans.

We have faith because we know God in Christ, and we are learning to know God in Christ all the time. We can know God in Christ all the time We can know God in Christ in the places of deliverance and possibility. We can know God in Christ in the hard places where we are sent: even in those places where we can see good reasons for saying “no”.

God came to share our temptation to say “no”. In Jesus, God deeply desired to say “no” to his own plan to die under the burden of our sins. The Son prayed to the Father, “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark14:36)

Jesus said “no” to himself and “yes” to the cross. He said “yes” to the cross in order to say “yes” to us.

The apostles rejoiced to be counted worthy to share the sufferings of Jesus by suffering for his sake. They said “yes” to sharing life with Jesus on the cross. If we say “yes” when we are tempted to say “no” then we can know that we are with Jesus, and that we truly belong to him all the time.

Wonderful things happen because the kingdom of God is on the move now. Jesus is Lord. How does the kingdom of God want to shape us now? What is the next thing the Lord is telling us to say “yes” to? What does he want to help us become?

We may be saying “no” to some wonderful and joyful things. We may be saying no to going back to a place where we got in trouble before; like the apostles being sent back to preach in the Temple. We may be saying “no” to something dangerous and difficult; something that is still God’s next thing.

Each of us, as individuals, have such next things. So does the church, the body of Christ. Our message is about life. We can say “yes” to whatever the next thing is, and find life there. We will find Christ there. What is it?

Pushing Boundaries - The Authentic Life

Preached on Sunday, July 24, 2016

Scripture reading: Acts 4:32-5:11

South Coast Orange County California
June 2015 and June 2016

An Irishman proposed to his girlfriend on St. Patrick’s Day. He gave her a ring. It looked like a diamond ring, but the stone was a synthetic diamond. When the girl realized it was fake she was furious. How could the man she loved trick her like that? She told him what she thought of him, but he told her this. “It was in honor of St. Patrick’s Day! I gave you a sham-rock!”

Ananias and Sapphira wanted to shine like diamonds in the church, but they didn’t want to pay the price for that. They paid another price instead. They paid for what they wanted with a lie. They wanted to be thought of as something they were not. And then they paid another price for that.

It was all a sham. They wanted to base their life as followers of Jesus on a lie. They wanted to be loved and valued as God’s people based on a lie.

This is a deadly desire. It kills the soul.

The New Testament calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Truth (John 16:13 and the Spirit of Life (Romans 8:2). The Holy Spirit is God. Peter said it: “You have lied to the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 5:3) “You have lied to God.” (Acts 5:4)

To go outside of the truth is truly to go outside of life. In this case, someone has written, “There are some things you cannot do and live.” (Theodore P. Ferris, International Bible Commentary; vol. 9, p. 76)

Some people truly die of broken hearts and grief. Some people think that they will die of shame, although I’m not sure if that happens.

Ananias and Sapphira plotted a lie about themselves, and what they had done for God, and for God’s people, and it killed them. When they went outside the Spirit of Truth, they also went outside the Spirit of Life.

The old courtroom oath goes like this: “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.” Sometimes I don’t tell the whole truth. I hold some of the truth back. OK. Let me come right out and say it. I have lied. That’s the truth.

What can I say? I love the truth, but I don’t love it enough. I hate lies, but I don’t hate them enough. I know, to some extent what this means.

I am not surprised that lying killed Ananias and Sapphira. I am surprised that it doesn’t happen more often. Most of all, what surprises me is that it hasn’t killed me. I still live. Why?

I would say that this story tells us about the mercy of God just as much as it tells us about the holiness of God. It tells us that God gives us chance, after chance, after chance, to live into the truth and to live into the life of Christ.

It isn’t out of place to say that the sin behind the lie was hypocrisy. The story tells us that hypocrisy is deadly. It’s deadly to the soul. It’s deadly to the church. It’s deadly to the message of Jesus. It gives people much too good an excuse to reject both the church and the Lord whom the church represents.

It’s deadly, I say. We don’t feel this enough. We play the part of Ananias and Sapphira.

I also believe that it is possible to die of fear. I wonder if Ananias and Sapphira died because Peter, and the Holy Spirit speaking through him, caused them to see what they had done. They saw the face of evil in their hypocrisy. They saw the face of evil in their lie. Maybe this was too much for them, and the fear of what they had done killed them.

In terms of the lie, this wasn’t the first lie ever told. It was the first recorded lie told in the family circle of the church in the heart of being the church, where we are told: “All the believers were one in heart and mind.” (Acts 4:32)

It would be like a wife or husband hearing their spouse tell a lie and they had never heard them do it before. Has that ever happened? It would be like a foul word used by a child in such a way that you realized that they were perfectly accustomed to using that word. It would be like a cigarette dangling from the lips of a twelve-year-old. And yet it happens.

We know in our heart that such things (and even worse things) should not exist, and yet they do exist.

The story about Ananias and Sapphira is shocking partly because we are so used to things being the way they are and, suddenly, we see that we have failed to see ourselves. And then we are blind because God’s goodness is so powerful that it allows us to hide from the truth of ourselves. Even in a fallen world, where everything is out of line and misses its point, or goes too far, or falls short of its mark…even in such a world, even in us, there is still so much that shows God’s glory and God’s image.

Any wrongdoing, or wrong in the heart, is like a blot on the face of God. Whether it’s adultery, or impurity, or a thirty-year feud, or a life dedicated to the manipulation of others, or cruelty, or something stolen from you, or a simple lie, all such things are acts of vandalism, or self-mutilation, of the image of God in us, in others, and in the cause of God.

In the church (whether it is the church of the time of Ananias and Sapphira, or the church here and now) the love of Jesus wraps around each person like a restored innocence. Sin is still there, but the innocence of Jesus is also there, because he died for each person, and for all of us together. He died and rose to give us a new life through which we are called to live into this new, offered innocence. Jesus died and rose from the dead to give us the power to make that goodness real and authentic.

We have been given a new life where our face, our words, and our actions become more and more like Jesus. Every day Jesus is to become more real in us. The cross of Jesus is meant to become who we are. The resurrection of Jesus is meant to become who we are: in real authentic life.

The gift of the Holy Spirit can enable you to see this new, real life becoming more and more real. Look around you. Look into the faces of others. Let’s start with these faces around us, as practice, and see Jesus. The people who have not learned see Jesus are meant, in the purpose of God, to be able to look at you, and see the Jesus they don’t know yet: and see the Jesus they could grow to love and grow into him.

Authenticity means being the real thing. Authenticity means you being who you really are and not pretending to be what you are not. I’ve known some people who have done this and the result was horrible. Christian authenticity has to go further.

For the Christian the boundary for being authentic has been pushed much farther out. Authenticity means really being Jesus, for a change. When Jesus is in you, to be anything else is to become a lie. It’s like lying to God, lying to Jesus, lying to the Holy Spirit.

Sin in us (sin in the church) is like another point of a thorn in a band-new crown of thorns. It’s like the point of a nail, or a spear, all over again on a new cross, or just on the old one. It’s like drawing a swastika on a portrait of Jesus or burning down a church.

And yet the lie and the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira is so common it’s a fact of life.

Like so many things, once it was done, it became so easy to repeat. We don’t like it but we almost expect it. The world expects it of us, and sees it in us, even when it’s not there. Even Christians accept it as a fact of life. Yet it’s a destructive fact of life. It’s deadly.

Everything we do, everything we say, everything we think and feel, is done, and said, and thought, and felt in the presence of God. God hears. God sees.

The good news of Jesus is the news of a God who hears and sees this shocking world of ours, and even the shallowness and the hollowness of the supposedly holy people that we pretend to be. God hears and sees it all, along with all the vast centuries of this shocking world going on and on. God hears and sees it all, and comes and dies for this world, and for us. Then he rises from our death and gives us life.

Ananias and Sapphira were surrounded by people who knew this God, in Jesus, but they seem not to have authentically known him. Ananias and Sapphira didn’t know that God came in Jesus to buy them from their sins into a new life.

They were surrounded by the people who authentically met the love of the God who hears, and sees, and dies. They were surrounded by the people who couldn’t help doing anything but giving everything in return. They were surrounded by people who gave everything; not to buy Jesus, not to buy love and admiration, but in order to have nothing that could compete with being bought by Jesus.

Ananias and Sapphira wanted a new life among such people, but they didn’t want to give everything in return for that authentic life. What Jesus had done was not authentic for them. They had to construct a life in Christ out of lies.

They had not been bought by the cross and set free. The gospel, the good news of Jesus comes to take off the blinders, and break down the lies. The Christian life is very shallow and shaky until we get this freedom from what we pretend to be. Then we will have more than a sham to give to each other, and to God.

The gospel means good news because it is designed to make us free. We will only be free when we can accept God’s gifts the only way they can be given and received. God’s love is only given as a gracious, undeserved, cleansing love for sinners.

Only the people who know they need such a love can receive it. Christ can live in a person who is authentic enough to be thankful that a new life is offered to them at the price of a cross.

Pushing Boundaries - The Controversial Life

Preached on Sunday, July 17, 2016

Scripture reading: Acts 4:1-20

One of my grandmas (my Baci or Babci) was Polish and when I was a kid she taught me some Polish words. My favorite was “idź spać”.

“Idź spać” literally means “go to sleep”, but you can use it as one way of saying “shut up”. I loved that saying that!

When I was little, I would use that on people who had no idea what it meant. And I wouldn’t tell them what it meant. I was smart enough to know better. Or you could say I was just being silly.

The high priests of the Temple in Jerusalem must have thought that one of their most important jobs was to say “shut up”. I think they really loved that job. I think they were used to having people shut up very fast when they said it.

Peter had been on trial, once before, about Jesus. It wasn’t a formal trial. That first trail happened on the night when Jesus was arrested, when bystanders accused Peter of being a disciple of Jesus. Peter crumbled in fear and denied even knowing who Jesus was.

On this day in court, Peter was brilliant. Actually the Holy Spirit was brilliant. Peter said: “Are you putting me on trial for an act of kindness?” “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.” (Acts 4:9-10)

Sometimes Christians seem very weird in the wrong way, and for all the wrong reasons. The New Testament teaches us to be weird in the right way, for all the right reasons.

Or maybe it shouldn’t be weirdness. It’s about being controversial. Followers of Jesus are called to the controversial life. Jesus motivates us to live, and speak, and respond in extraordinary ways; in unexpected, surprising ways. We are called to imitate the pattern of Jesus.

We do it for him. We do it in Jesus’ name. Paul wrote: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)

In this story about a healing, and the joy, and the fear, and the anger which that healing produced, we can see this element of surprise over and over again. When Peter and John made contact with the lame man, healing came as a complete surprise. The lame man never asked for healing.

There’s a little humor in it too. Peter almost joked when he said, “I’m sorry that I don’t have the money you need. All I can do for you is to heal you in the name of Jesus.” That’s an Evans paraphrase.

In the trial before the Jewish high court, Peter started out pretending to misunderstand the purpose of the trial. “Are we on trial for kindness here? Are you the kindness police?” Peter made light of something the court took very seriously.

The members of the court weren’t used to being treated like that. Even more surprising, the members of the court were very skillful in the art of creating fear and intimidation, and the disciples only demonstrated courage and conviction. It took the members of the court completely by surprise.

The court did nothing to Peter and John to hurt them, but the warning and the threat were real. The life of the disciples was set to change. Controversy for the sake of Jesus would be costly. Peter, and John, and the rest of the followers of Jesus would live into a life under threat.

How did they all respond? They prayed. What did they pray for? Did they pray for deliverance, and safety, and God’s all-powerful protection? No! Did they pray for wisdom, and prudence, and discernment?

No! The discernment they already had led them all to pray for boldness. That was the big surprise. The high court hadn’t sent them home for that. The Holy Spirit did the surprising thing and filled them all with boldness.

Peter and John had been courageous and positive. In their message to the crowd, they had made a point of comforting their hearers by recognizing that they had not realized what they had done when they shouted for the crucifixion of Jesus, and that the leaders hadn’t known what they were doing either. During the trial, Peter only talked to the high court the way he did in an honest effort to talk sense to them, and to tell them the truth that they clearly didn’t understand even yet. Boldness can be as simple as that.

In our controversial life we are only giving the world around us, and the people we see every day, a gift that we understand, knowing that they simply don’t understand yet.

In our controversial life we are called to do and to say surprising, unexpected things. In our controversial life we are called to humbly and good humoredly give to others something much better than what we are given. This is because of what Jesus has given us. It’s because of what Jesus is more than ready to them. We only give to the world around us the work and the words of Jesus.

 The controversial life can be dangerous. In the end Peter died because he lived and spoke for Jesus. Of all the apostles, only John died a natural death. The others were all killed because they lived and spoke for Jesus, and because they did this with boldness.

Boldness for Jesus can be dangerous. People are dying for Jesus right now. We shouldn’t think that this danger is beyond the realm of possibility for each one of us. We never know what way the world will turn.

On a lesser note, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to find yourself being told to shut up about Jesus. Someone you know very well, and have always gotten along with just fine, may basically say to you something like this: “We don’t care what you do as long as you shut up about it. Shut up about Jesus.”

Remember that you can be bold with humor, and grace, and with good sense.

Some Christians seem to think that Jesus does some sleight of hand with us.  They think that, if you make a formal, heart-felt surrender of your right to a thing, that Jesus will turn around and give you that thing. I keep thinking that if I surrender what I consider to be my right to be married, that God will give me a wife. I’ve been making that mistake for years now.

If you surrender to God your sense of having a right to live a quiet, non-controversial life in which you are not called upon to have your faith judged and to have your faith mocked, that doesn’t mean that God will be OK with your retreat from the controversial life.

Of course you can play possum. You can play it safe, if you really want to do that. The price of playing it safe will be a life where God leaves you alone a great deal of the time. That can be a happy life, and a lot of people choose to live a life where God leaves them mostly alone.

Our calling is to rescue those people from that kind of happiness. You’ve got to choose your happiness carefully (or perhaps boldly).

When Peter and John were called back into court and told to shut up, this was their answer: “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20)

One thing cannot be a surprise; and that is knowing whom to obey.

There is this other thing too. “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” If we are to be followers of Jesus there must be something that we know of him.

Boldness is not a part of my nature. I had to start doing surprising things that no one expected me to do when I had a deep conviction in my heart that I could not stand the thought of being a person who said no to Jesus. I had to do something that I didn’t believe I had to do (and I still don’t believe I had to do it).

The Lord presented me with some minor thing that I had to do. I had to fight myself to do it. I had to be controversial with myself; that I would not say no in a little thing to Jesus, who died for me on the cross.

I have to be vague about this because, otherwise, I promise you, someone will make this little thing into a big thing that everyone has to do.

When I refused to be a person who said no to God, I began to change in many ways and to understand the Bible in ways I had never understood it before. I became happy in a way that I had not been, ever before.

There was no supernatural vision or hearing. There wasn’t even a sense of “my heart strangely warmed.” (Although I have had such spiritually warming experiences before and since.)

I had to perform the surprising gesture of disobeying myself and crossing a line that I had drawn in the sand. I was pushing a boundary. I was making myself into a controversy with myself.

When I did this, something in me cracked and opened.  I simply became abler than ever before to see and to hear that Jesus is real, and that Jesus is Lord.

Before they were arrested, Peter and John spoke to the crowd about the times of refreshing that will come from the Lord. (Acts 3:19) This points to the new creation, the new heaven and earth that will come when Jesus comes again.

The times of refreshing, though, are beginning right now. They have been beginning for the last two thousand years. The times of refreshing come when Jesus crosses a line that you have drawn in the sand, when he comes to any person and cracks that shell that they have made to protect themselves from knowing who Jesus is.

The times of refreshing come with the forgiveness of that past life and the change that every person needs so much, so deep down inside them. That is the work of the death of Jesus for us on the cross, and his own rising to a new life to give us the gift of dying to ourselves and rising to a new life.

There is some way that Jesus will make you able to see and hear that he is real, and that he is Lord, that you have never understood before. Jesus died and rose to make this possible, and to make you his own person.

Then you will join the controversial life, and you won’t be able to help speaking and living what you have seen and heard of Jesus.

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.