Remembering our Baptism

Genesis 1:1-5

Mark 1:4-11

            We’ve all heard the saying, “You are only as good as the company you keep.”  It begins with our parents trying to protect us from being influenced by the bad behavior of other children.  Then as we get older we learn to avoid the naughty children in order to steer clear of the dreaded “guilt by association.” However our sense of cautionary associations becomes warped as we get into junior high.  In the midst of the unpredictable growth spurts, uncomfortable voice changes and newfound acne we are at the zenith of our insecurity.  Some of us join cliques so that we can hold on to our friends like life preservers as we traverse the treacherous waters of adolescents.  While others of us decide to become our own island, becoming a loner so that our social destiny is determined only by our own Holy Trinity, me, myself and I.  Either way, we become obsessed with who is in and who is out.  Popularity is not won by being friendly and kind, rather it is earned by who you are seen with.  The goal becomes being seen with the right people and shunning those who are less than perfect.  What is interesting is you become who you are seen with.  Hang out the wealthy kids and you are perceived as well off, even if you are from a family of humble means.  Hang out with the cheerleaders, you are perceived as the big guy/big gal on campus.  Hang out with the kids in the parking lot who smoking cigarettes, you are perceived as a burn out, even if you’ve never smoked, drank or did drugs. hang out with the kids who are in the math and science club, you are a nerd and so on and so on. 

Unfortunately we do not totally outgrow this behavior. Part of the human condition is the need to feel secure and in the quest for security it is natural for us to want to align ourselves with individuals and groups that will give us the most benefits, be it socially, vocationally or even financially.  In a competitive culture such as ours, it is not what you know but who you know, or really who you are seen with that gets you ahead.  However that’s not how Jesus saw it.

            This morning we hear the beginning of Jesus’ life as remembered by the evangelist Mark.  The Gospel of Mark has no account of Jesus’ birth or early childhood.  Instead he begins with the story of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist.  The gospel states that John the Baptist was an unusual person, dressed in camels hair, eating locusts and honey and running around warning all who would hear him, ““The kingdom is near! The Messiah is coming!  Prepare the Way!”  Basically John the Baptist was the Ancient Near East’s version of the bumper sticker, “The Messiah is coming…look busy!” 

Now, an important part John’s ministry was baptizing people in the waters of the river Jordan for the forgiveness of their sins.  Through the baptism of repentance that John gave, the sinner is ritually washing away their sins so that they may be inspired to let go of their worldly desires and to turn towards God’s desire for the world.  To repent, which literally means to turn, is really all about re-orientation so that the baptized becomes open to and obedient of God’s will.  John never claimed to be a big shot, no quite the opposite, he told his brethren that one more powerful than him was coming that would baptize them with the Spirit rather than just water.

            So imagine if you will John chest deep in the water, dunking sinners one by one in the river when suddenly he finds that the next man in line is none other than Jesus.  This is the Messiah, the son of God standing in front of him waiting to be dunked in the muddy waters of the Jordan.  This was downright scandalous! 

In her sermon on the Baptism of Jesus, Barbara Brown Taylor tells us that the Christian church has always had a certain discomfort with the baptism of Jesus.  She says, “Compare the accounts of each of the four gospels and you cannot miss the un-ease of the authors.”[i]  “Matthew elaborates on Mark’s story by adding that John tried to talk Jesus out of being baptized, and Luke will not even come out and say it was John who did it.  The fourth gospel [the gospel of John] is the most ticklish of all.  In it, John bears witness that he saw the Spirit descend like a dove upon Jesus, but he does not mention anything about the baptism at all.  Scholars say all this embarrassment is our surest proof that Jesus really was baptized by John, because when someone tells you something that is not in his best interest for you to know, then you can be reasonably sure he was telling you the truth.”[ii]

When Jesus took his place in line, he didn’t care about being associated with the sinners.  If Jesus was concerned about reputation he would not have allowed himself to be baptized by some eccentric guy in the muck of the river Jordan.  Instead we’d see Jesus standing on the shore and encouraging those sinful people as they went into the water or we’d see him holding out his hand and helping these mere mortals as they came out of the river or even offer to take over the baptizing so that John could take a break.[iii]  But no, Jesus did something more radical than that, the son of God who is without sin take his place in the long line of sinners to share in their baptism.  As the one sent by God to share God’s love with all of creation, Jesus began his public ministry by showing humanity that he is one of us by getting in the “river with us, in the flesh with us, in the sorrow of repentance and joy of new life with us.”[iv]  It is then that he hears the voice of God say, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:10-11) 

In this morning’s Hebrew Scriptures we hear the beginning of the creation story.   As God’s spirit swept over the waters God created the heavens and the earth with just his voice. The voice of God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.  God said “Let the waters under the sky be gathered into one place, and let dry land appear.” And there was the land and the seas.  God called the earth to bring forth living things of every kind and it was so. Then God created humankind, in God’s image, male and female both.  And with each step of creation God saw all that had been done and declared that it was good.  God didn’t say that the trees were better than the plants, or that the sea animals were better than the land animals or that some humans were better than other humans, as the scripture states in Genesis 1:27 “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them [and] God blessed them.”

Some note that when we read the story of Jesus’ baptism in combination with the creation story we find that Jesus’ baptism is less about sin and more about solidarity.  “When Jesus steps down into the waters of the Jordan, with the Spirit now descending from above, he steps down into the chaos of [humanity] and trusts the power of God to make order out of chaos, even through him.”[v]

Today we remember our baptisms.  As we look at the baptismal font we recall the long line of people who have been baptized before us and the long line that follows us.  Through the waters of baptism we become part of the church, which is full of sinners and saints and everyone in-between, and we love them all.  In baptism, God works in us the power of forgiveness, the renewal of the spirit and the knowledge of the call to be God’s people always.  In every Christian Church we share this sacrament of baptism within a worship service in order to welcome the newly baptized into our community of faith and to vow to always remind them that indeed they are a child of God. 

            Jesus got chest deep into the chaotic and muddy waters of the Jordan to be in solidarity with us in our humanness.  When he emerged from these waters, he began his active ministry soaked to the bone with these words of God’s love.  “This is my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased” Let these words soak into your very being just as they did Jesus, as a proclamation that we are all God’s beloved children. 

May it be so.  Amen!

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[i] Barbara Brown Taylor. Home by Another Way. (Cambridge, Mass: Cowley Publications, 1999.), 34.

[ii] Taylor Home by Another Way, 34

[iii] Taylor Home by another way, 34-35.

[iv] Taylor Home by another way, 35

[v] FOW Genesis exegetical perspective 223

The Lord is my Shepherd

Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 23

         On Facebook many of us like to share pictures with captions that strike us as funny or cause us to think.  Those who are my Facebook friends know that I like to post pictures from the website “I can has cheeseburger” that depict cute cats in compromising positions with captions such as “No not right now human…I’m busy being a cat” and “I eated Barbie…house mine now.”  However there is an interesting image making its rounds on Facebook.  On the left hand side is a drawing depicting the Israelite people worshiping the golden calf, underneath it is the caption “Canaan circa 1300 BCE”.  On the right hand side is a photograph of a bronze sculpture of a charging bull, underneath that is the caption “Wall Street circa 2000 CE.”  Above these pictures is the title “Bovine Idolatry Through the Ages.”  The more things change, the more things stay the same.

            It is easy for us to vilify the Israelites for their dance around the golden calf.  We wonder, what are these people thinking?  Do they not remember that the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham and Isaac is the same God who freed them from slavery from the Egyptians, who parted the red sea so that they may escape capture and then drowned the entire Egyptian Army with these same waters?   How could they turn away from the God who has given them mercy in order to worship lesser gods?

            Yes the problem was that the Israelites were not thinking when they worshiped built and worshiped the golden calf.  They were only reacting to the immediate circumstances that surrounded them.  We remember that the Israelites wandered in the barren desert for forty years after they were led out of Egypt. At first they encountered hunger.  They became anxious and complained to Moses that they wanted to go back to Egypt, “‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’” (Exodus 16:3)  God heard their complaints and sent them manna, bread from heaven.  With it God assured them that they would be provided for and commanded them to only gather enough manna to sustain themselves for the day.  However some Israelite tried to horde more manna than they needed for the day but quickly melted or went rotten. 

As the Israelites journeyed further into the desert they ran out of water.  Once again anxious for their survival they complained to Moses, “‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?... ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” (Exodus 17:3b, 7b)  God heard the anxious complaints of the people and provided them with water.  There seems to be a pattern developing here, the Israelites encounter hardship, they become anxious, they react by complaining, and God provides for them but not according the Israelites terms or timeline.  Even though God has provided for their basic needs, the uncertainty of how and when they will be provided for fuels their fear.  With each setback the Israelites react with impatience.  They immediately think that God has abandoned them and that they can no longer wait for God’s reappearance, so they seek to fill the void with other things.  Whether it is a desire to return to the halcyon days of slavery in Egypt, or the useless hording of manna or even the worshiping the god of the golden calf, the Israelites try to ease their anxiety with a quick fix. 

The search for the quick fix is a natural part of the human condition.  Whenever we encounter something triggers our anxiety our instantaneous response is to either fight it or flee from it.  Without thoughtful discernment, we surrender to our anxiety and react to our situation without thinking.  We rely too much on our own expertise and rush towards other solutions without waiting for God’s guidance.  It is too easy for us to make the most important life decisions marriage, calling, career, family without bringing God into the conversation.  Sometimes it is just too easy to be just like the Israelites, seeking a quick fix instead of thoughtfully discerning a long term solution.

What we forget is that we are completely and utterly dependant on God just as sheep are completely dependant on their shepherd.  We cannot do it on our own.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;

He restores my soul.  He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:1-3)

Some note that the Israelites longed to live with God as sheep live with a shepherd but their fear got in the way.  “They were too afraid to keep believing that this shepherd was leading them to green pastures or that goodness and mercy would follow them.  So they frequently rushed down more promising paths toward more manageable gods, which always led them to unmanageable trouble.”[i] 

Many of us go to the 23^rd psalm in times of distress.  It is often read at funerals and hospital bedsides to ease our grief, to calm our anxiety and to strengthen our trust.  From the beginning of the psalm with the words “The Lord is my shepherd” we are told who God is and who we are.  God was, is and will always be in control, we are not.  If we trust in God to lead us, God will always lead us to refreshing places along the best paths.  And even when we walk through the dark valleys of illness, depression, addiction, abuse, rejection, bitter disappointment and other hard experiences of life we will have no fear because God is with us, sitting by us, suffering with us.  God blesses us abundantly even when we are experiencing life’s most difficult times.  Yes there may be anxiety and suffering, but there are always blessings to be enjoyed even in the extreme situations where we are in the presence of those who oppose us.[ii]  If we stop dwelling on golden calves and the false gods of greed, domination, and the quick fix and instead choose to dwell on the house of the Lord which is a place of abundance and beauty surely goodness and mercy will follow us all our lives long.  May it be so.  Amen.

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[i] Craig Barnes “Sheep on the Run” The Christian Century March 10, 2002

[ii] David B. Calhoun, "Poems in the Park: My Cancer and God's Grace," Presbyterion, 2008.

A World Communion Sunday Sermon

Matthew 21: 33-46 

Let me begin this sermon by letting you know that I think this is one of the most depressing parables of the Bible.  Yes we know that Jesus’ parables are meant to disturb rather than comfort, but come on Jesus, what’s up this story.  The landlord has lost his harvest, his slaves and his son.  The tenants have lost their lives.  Nothing is gained, in the end everyone has lost.   As always the first step of Biblical interpretation is to understand the context from which this story comes.  In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells this parable the day after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, what we now celebrate as Palm Sunday.  He has just stormed the temple by overturning the tables of the money changers and driving out all who were selling and buying in the temple.  The temple leaders, the chief priests and the elders hear of Jesus’ mayhem and also see that the crowds turning against the established leadership.  It’s time to stop Jesus and his ragtag group of followers before all hell breaks loose.  So the chief priests and the elders look for Jesus and find him in the temple teaching.  They confront him by asking “By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority.” (21:23b) and Jesus answers them in his usual fashion, he tells them a series parables which include this disturbing parable of the wicked tenants.

We remember that Jesus’ audience was very diverse, rich, poor, man, woman, etc. etc.  So each person hears this story in a different way.  The poor farmers in his audience who have toiled in the vineyards under their absentee landlords would have hung on every word that Jesus said thinking that he was on their side.  As they hear about the tenants killing the slaves sent over by the landlord they cannot help but cheer.  “That’s showing them Jesus…send them away packing.”  But when Jesus asked “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do with those tenants?” and they hear the answer, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to the other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” The peasants wonder “Where is the good news for me in this story?”

Then there are the landowners who are only doing business like their fathers had done before them, and their father’s fathers had done.  They may acknowledge that the conditions that their tenants live under maybe harsh but that is of no concern to them, the landowners feel they have earned their place of power and comfort through their hard work rather than from their place of privilege.  To think otherwise would mean giving up many of the comforts they enjoy.  Yes, they can identify with the landlord in Jesus’ story but then they also feel Jesus pulling them towards hearing the plight of the peasant farmers. 

However it is the elders and the chief priests who are most disturbed by this parable.  They are good people living what they had been taught to believe to be a righteous life, where they work hard to eat the right foods, associate with the right people and keep the purity rules to the letter of the law. However they hear Jesus telling them that they’ve been doing it wrong. They see Jesus claiming to have the authority of God, yet they see him continually breaks the purity laws that the church leaders had been taught their whole life to follow.  And most offensively they see Jesus eating with and relating to people who are flagrant sinners and of the utmost impurity, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the lepers.  The religious authorities gasp at the end of the parable because they know that they are the evil tenants that are to be tossed out of the vineyard. 

We remember that every word and image in Jesus’ parables stands for something other than what is actually said.   In this parable the land of Israel is the vineyard, the landowner is God, the slaves that the landowner sends out are the prophets and that the son in the story, sent by the land owner is Jesus.  Each person in the audience hears condemnation as Jesus says, “Have you never read the scriptures.  The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing… The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” 

As I stated earlier, it would seem that nothing good has come of this story, that in the end everyone has lost because of fear, greed and violence.  But then we remember that in this story Jesus directs us toward the God’s kingdom to come. “Therefore I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”(21:43)  The powers and principalities of the world may live by rules of domination, hierarchy, greed for wealth and conquering others but God’s way lives by love and justice![i]  Jesus is the cornerstone and his life and ministry was all about living into God’s love and justice.  He taught us how to live in right relationship with all of God’s creation.  That fruits produced in the kingdom of God is all of creation having what they need in order to live whole sustainable lives.  It will be those who are good stewards of the abundance which God has given the world that will prosper in God’s kingdom and it will be those who do not heed to God’s ways that will lose their very lives to the forces of fear and greed.

How are we to take this story in light the economic distress we are facing at this time?  Our economy as we know it has imploded upon itself because of greed.  The market conditions go up and down like a roller coaster because of fear and as a result many are unemployed.  And one of the outcomes is the increase violence increases such as the hate crimes perpetrated in Concord a few weeks ago.  However, the good news is that God’s kingdom is going to come regardless of opposition even if we are part the forces that are opposing it.  The salvation of humankind is given to us freely not because we follow a set of rules, but just because God loves us.  It is the systems of domination that are judged by God.  Our call as people of faith is to be mindful of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom here on earth and to do everything we can to be the hands, feet and voice of God in bringing it to fulfillment.   When loving God and loving our neighbor become our bottom line we are able to let go of our fears and work towards a building a world where all who are afflicted are comforted, where all who hunger are fed, and all who hunger and thirst for righteousness are satisfied.  This my friends is the kingdom of God here on earth. 

Every time we gather around Christ’s table we share with each other the fruit’s of God’s kingdom, the bread of life and the cup of liberation.  And on this World Communion Sunday we remember that all over the world, our Christian sisters and brothers are at Christ’s table as well.  From the prairies and pampas of the Americas, the dusty deserts of Africa and Asia, from the majestic mountains of Europe to the vast outback of Australia[ii], we all come to the table humbly expecting the fruitful harvest that God has graciously enabled us to bring forth.  God’s kingdom is here and it continues to come, may we as a community of faith make it our own.

May it be so.

Amen.                

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[i] Linda McKinnish Bridges, "Preaching the Parables in Matthew's Gospel in Ordinary Time: The Extraordinary Tales of God's World," Review & Expositor 104 (Spring 2007): 338

[ii] Ana and Tod Gobledale, Come for the Meal is Ready! World Communion Liturgy.  (Cleveland:  Local Church Ministries and Education Team, United Church of Christ, 2008), 2.

From Remembrance to Hope - A Sermon on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

Isaiah 65: 17-25

Philippians 4:4-9

Mark 13:1-8

                Many of us remember where we were the exact moment that the first plane hit the World Trade Center 10 years ago today.  It was a sunny Tuesday morning, the sky was a bright blue and the fall crispness was in the air tempered by the warmth of the sun.  I was working as an accountant for a large corporation in downtown Minneapolis at the time.  It was early in the morning and I was listening to the radio while processing my daily cash accounting. My favorite DJ was reading the news in her usual joking manner but suddenly she stopped, and in a panicked voice she said that a jet had hit a sky scraper in New York.  I stopped working and looked at my radio.  Then my phone rang.  I picked it up and my partner Shelly said that she had just seen on TV an airline jet fly into one of the twin towers in New York.  I was stunned.  I didn’t know what to say.  I tried to get on the CNN but it was overloaded.  I changed the radio station to public radio to hear more news of this situation.  At first I thought it was just some bizarre accident, that someone must have fallen asleep at air traffic control thus causing these planes to fly amuck. Then the towers started to collapse.

            “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”  Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” (Mark 13: 1-2)

As the day wore on, the media revealed that terrorists associated with the group Al-Qaeda had hijacked the commercial airline jets planes and had flown them into the towers for the purpose of utter destruction.

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.  This is but the beginning of birth pangs.” (Mark 13:8)

Then I heard that a plane had crashed into the pentagon.  My panic shifted into high gear because my sister lives just a few miles from the pentagon.  I tried to call her but couldn’t get through because the phone circuits were overloaded.  I then I did something that I hadn’t done since I was a kid, I called my big brother hoping that he had a word of comfort or protection for me.  When we spoke he went into problem solving mode, he guessed that Osama Bin Laden had something to do with these planes crashing.  He deduced that because we were in the Midwest, there was no way harm would come to us, because really what was there that was worth attacking in Minnesota.  When I got off the phone with him I just sat and I worried.  Eventually my workplace closed and they sent us home for the day. 

Shelly and I rode the bus home from work together.  The bus was full but the people were dead silent.  I noticed that the streets were unusually empty in our normally bustling downtown Minneapolis.  The stores had closed early and many of the offices were empty.  The skies were also empty because all planes had been grounded.  I realized that my world had changed instantly in the moments that the planes had hit the twin towers.  I thought to myself that if these massive buildings could come down, then maybe the whole world could come down as well.  Safety was no longer something that I could take for granted. 

            There is something about September 11, that has challenged our core beliefs and perceptions of God.  We know that God’s own name was used by the suicide highjackers before they crashed the planes into the twin towers and the pentagon.  We experienced the raw force of evil, not caused by a mere blow of fate but as a result of a group of men believed in something so much that they forget that there were human beings involved.  How could such things be planned so meticulously, executed so destructively in the name of God. 

For the ancient Israelite people the destruction of the great Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD was their September 11.  History tells us that the temple of Jerusalem was the center of the lives of the Jewish community of which Jesus was a part of.  They came to the temple because they believed that God physically dwelled within the temple in a room called the holy of holies.  The Jewish folk throughout the Middle East made pilgrimage to the temple on Passover to celebrate the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  This was exactly what Jesus and his disciples were doing in this morning’s gospel reading.  

Most Biblical Scholars believe that Mark was able to include the prophecy of the Temple because it already happened.  In trying to make meaning out of this destructive event, Mark writes about the story of the temple destruction by having Jesus prophesy it.  While the disciples marvel at the grandeur of the buildings while Jesus let’s them know that these buildings will be destroyed. 

             Forty years later, the temple of Jerusalem did fall as the Roman Army quashed the Jewish rebellion in the year 70 AD.  All of the Jewish people which included the early Christians were devastated by the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem.  They wondered how God’s dwelling place could be so brutally destroyed by an earthly empire.  What does that say about God, what does that say about us who worship God?  This indeed was an uncertain time in the life of the early Christian Community. 

This was not the first time that the Temple had been destroyed.  In the year 587 BCE, Jerusalem had been invaded by the Babylonians who destroyed the first great Temple built by Solomon.  The older testament text we read this morning from Isaiah was written just as the ancient Israelites were beginning the difficult task of rebuilding their community in a time where people were cynical about their future.  There was hardship all around them, their lives were difficult.  And yet Isaiah was able to say with confidence “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.” (Isaiah 65:18)  Isaiah had confidence that the God who created heaven and earth does not seek to destroy but rather seeks to build upon the original creation and transform it into something new.[i]  But how does a community move from remembering the destruction of the past to a new hope for the future.

This morning we participated in a litany where we made this very transition.  We began with lighting a candle in remembrance for all who suffered and died on September 11 and ended with lighting a candle of hope for a new world of unity and peace.  We moved from remembrance to hope through lighting a candle of penitence, where we acknowledged our shadow side, the times when our anger, hate, rage and indignation have caused us to dehumanize others who are not like us.  In so doing, we begin to repent, we make a commitment to towards God and choose to do “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable.” (Phil 4:8) 

I want to end this sermon with a note of hope, let us remember that while there was much planning behind the terrorist acts of September 11^th, 2001, the kindness that poured forth in the immediate aftermath was not planned.  It was seen in the tender acts of kindness that people gave to one another not only in New York but all over the world.  It was seen in the reverence of the search teams that meticulously picked through the rubble of ground zero to recover the remains of those who perished in the disaster.  It was seen in the unity of our body politic as the members of congress sang “God Bless America” on the steps of the capital building.  On that day there was no democrat or republic, there wasn’t even the designation of liberal or conservative, there was only a group of our nation’s leaders praying together for God’s blessing on our nation in our time of need while the whole world prayed for us. 

Yes, ten years later, we are still fighting the war on terrorism and our world polarized and divisive.  But if we can remember the small ways that patience, love, kindness, compassion and forgiveness were given and received in the days after 9/11, we can keep doing the things we’ve learned from that time and the peace of God will always be with us.  May it be so.  Amen.

           

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[i] Mary Eleanor Johns, “Isaiah 65:17-25: Pastoral Perspective.”  Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 290.

“The End of the World? What Do We Take Seriously but not Literally.”

Revelation 21: 1-6
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Mark 13: 24-37

     This Sunday we are ending our church’s Pick Your Own Sermon series with a sermon about the “End Times.”  Quite ironic really, but truth be told, I was supposed to preach on this topic last week but the worship service was cancelled.  First came an earthquake up and down the East Coast earlier, then came the threat of hurricane Irene.  It made me wonder if these cataclysmic events were a mere coincidence or if the sermon that I was supposed to preach, “The End of the World?? What's up with all those Billboards?” was part of the signs of the apocalypse.  This week I am supposed to preach about why we take the Bible seriously and not literally and so I am combining these two sermon topics by studying literalism and the Book of Revelation.

            The book of Revelation has been “captured” by the end-of-the-world folks, who read John’s vision as part of a biblical blueprint for the final days of life on earth, which are understood by to be close at hand.  “According to one national poll, 62 % of Americans (not just American Christians mind you) have ‘no doubts’ that Jesus will come again.  Another poll reports that one-third believe the world will end soon.”[i]  Books such as The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey and the popular Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins fly off the bookstore shelves because they claim to be able predict the end of the world through a literal reading of the Bible. 

Recently, Family Radio president Howard Camp used passages from the Bible coupled with mathematical calculations to proclaim May 21^st, 2011 as the veritable Day of Judgment.  As we all know now Howard Camp was wrong.  He now claims he miscalculated and has changed it to October 21, 2011.  But how can Howard Camp and others like him make such predictions.  As we heard Jesus say in the gospel this morning, “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32)

The majority of mainline Christians are reluctant to acknowledge the troubling text of the Book of Revelation, considering the imagery of this text to be too bizarre and surreal.  We don’t like to recognize the four horses of the apocalypse, the harlot of Babylon and the seven headed dragon as part of our tradition.  We are reluctant to think about God destroying anything, most especially the world.  No, we don’t take this text literally, but in avoiding it, we are not taking it seriously either.  

The interpretation of the Bible, the Book of Revelation being one of the most controversial texts of interpretation is one of the things that divide the Christian Church.  We are all passionate about the Bible because as biblical scholar Marcus Borg states, “The Bible has been foundational for Christianity for many centuries.  How one sees the Bible and how one sees Christianity go hand in hand.”[ii]  On one side of the divide are those who believe that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God and thus the Bible has ultimate authority and truth.  For these folks allowing any non-literal translation of the Bible opens the door to evading the Bible’s authority and watering down the word of God.[iii]  Then there are those who read the Bible as a human product of two ancient communities - the Old Testament coming from the ancient Israelites and the New Testament coming from the early Christian communities.[iv]  Reading the Bible through this lens does not deny the inspiration of God in the scriptures, but rather it recognizes that God’s inspiration comes through human minds and hands.  That even as the authors work in concert with the Holy Spirit, they are still influenced by their culture, their life experiences and their worldviews. 

            Looking at the Bible as a whole, we see that the stories of the Bible are trying to answer questions which center upon God’s relationship to humankind.  Questions such as:  How and why did God create us?  Why is life a struggle?  Why does evil exist?  How does God interact with us?  How are we to interact with God?  What happens to us when we die?  Using the knowledge that they had in their time and place, the authors of the Bible attempted to answer these questions.  In his book Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally Marcus Borg states, “I see the Bible as a human response to God.  Rather than seeing God as scripture’s ultimate author, I see the Bible as the response of these two ancient communities to their experiences of God.  As such, it contains their stories of God, their perceptions of God’s character and will, their prayers to and praise of God, their perceptions of the human condition and the paths of deliverance, their religious and ethical practices their understanding of what faithfulness to God involves.  As a product of these two communities, the Bible thus tells us about how they saw things, not about how God sees things.”[v]

            Does this make the scriptures irrelevant to us, absolutely not!  The Bible is relevant to our Christian faith because it shows us that God is real and knowable, shows us how our lives can be made whole by living in right relationship with God and God’s creation and proves to us that God is a God of justice and compassion.  As Borg puts it, “God cares about suffering, and the single greatest source of unnecessary human misery is unjust and oppressive cultural systems.”[vi]  Knowing this we realize that the Book of Revelation was not written as a predictor of the end times but was written as a protest against the oppressive cultural system of the Roman Empire.

            Many believe that John of Patmos wrote the book of Revelation in the last days of Emperor Domitian 95 years after Jesus’ life and ministry on earth.  History tells us that the Roman Empire dominated the world through a combination of power, wealth, seduction, intimidation and violence.  A small elite class controlled all the production of wealth, resources and land in their own interests and declared the order they imposed to be the will of God.[vii]  The Emperors of Rome were deified as gods and the people that they ruled were expected to worship them as such.  The Book of Revelation was written to stand over and against the supremacy of the Roman Empire by stating that there is only one God and that one day God will make things right on earth.  Some note that John was not giving his readers a fantasy of the future, but rather he uses metaphors to recognize the struggle of his time and give his readers a portrait of life as God intends for all to live.  It is an expression of the human longing for God to heal the world from the harm done to it through the human sinfulness of domination and greed.  In the midst of loss and tears John preaches the promise of a new thing, a new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem.  He unveils for all who hear his message “worship God alone and become the people of freedom and joy that God has been calling throughout history.”[viii]

            Knowing this about the Book of Revelation we can apply it to our time and place.  It becomes a text of hope for those who are oppressed by our modern day empires and it serves to keep domineering nations on notice that ultimately God is in charge and God will make things right. 

            So how do we determine what to take seriously in the Bible, hear the words of Paul to his protégé Timothy.  “Remember Jesus, Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—That is my gospel… Remind them [your congregation] of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.” (2 Timothy 2:8, 14)  We are to remember that Jesus life and ministry is our bottom line as Christians.  We are to remember how Jesus preached and lived the good news of God’s grace freely given to all.  We are remember these words that Jesus preached about the gospel, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and .you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  (Matthew 22: 37-40)  That my brothers and sisters in Christ is what we need to take seriously!  May it be so.  Amen!

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[i]Borg, Marcus J. Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally. (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2001), 265.

[ii] Ibid., 11

[iii] Ibid., 4

[iv] Ibid.,

[v] Ibid., 23

[vi] Ibid., 300

[vii] Ibid., 286

[viii] Wes Howard-Brook, “Living in New Jerusalem, the Bibles celebratory vision of what the church is to be.”  Seasons of the Spirit Congregational Life Lent, Easter RCL Year C (2007), 114Ibid., 114.

The Old Testament God vrs the New Testament Jesus

            This week’s sermon explores the differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament. quite an undertaking to explain in the space of a 10 to 15 minute sermon.  So I began my research as any child of the computer age would, I went to the internet and googled the question “What is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament.”  The answers that came back to me were quite interesting.

• “The Old Testament was written before Jesus was born and the New Testament was written after.”  
• “The New Testament is the sequel to the Old Testament.”
• “The Old Testament is the covenant between God and the Israelites (sons of Abraham) and the New Testament is the covenant between God and everyone else.”
• “The Old Testament is Jewish, the New Testament is Christian.”
•  “In the Old Testament, the stories tell of a wrathful and vengeful God, whereas he does not exhibit his wrath as often in the New Testament until the book of Revelation.” 
• “The Old Testament is about the Law, The New Testament is about grace.”
• “The New Testament trumps the Old Testament.”

There are a lot of opinions out on the World Wide Web but it is hard to figure out what is the truth.  It reminds me of my very first day of Old Testament class in seminary.  The professor began the class by asking us to share our perceptions of the Old Testament and many of the answers that came were similar.  Many of us said that we didn’t like the Old Testament because the God of the Old Testament is a vengeful and angry God.  We thought that the Old Testament was all about sin, starting with the fall of humankind from it’s beginnings in the Garden of Eden.  That in the Old Testament God was all about laws and obedience, bringing wrath upon those who disobeyed him.  Some perceived the Old Testament as writings of doom and gloom where God thought badly of humankind and that in order to redeem us God sent his gentle son Jesus to be sacrificed for our sins which is written about in the New Testament.   In essence what we were saying was that the Old Testament was bad and the New Testament was good.  So why were we endeavoring to take a year long class on a section of the Bible we so detested, does required class for graduation ring any bells.  But thank goodness for required classes because they can help a student to open their eyes to new ways of seeing old stories.

First we must remember that the Bible is not just one book; but it is a collection of 66 books that tell the story of God’s relationship with humankind and creation.  Throughout the New and Old Testament this relationship is communicated through covenant—the promises of God made to humankind to love, care for, and guide us in the ways that give us life.  In the Old Testament the covenant is expressed most simply when God said, “I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you shall be my people.” (Leviticus 26:12).  This covenantal relationship was also expressed by Jesus in the New Testament when he made this promise to the disciples at the Last Supper “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” (1 Corinthians 11:25b)[i]  The Bible is not a single story with a single plot line, but rather the books of the Bible are put together like a family album.  The Bible contains a compilation of different kinds of literature.  Within it are sagas, laws, poetry, and even heroic biography to name a few.  Some of the books of the Bible are in placed in chronological order whereas other parts of it seem to be out of sequence. 

The Old Testament is the life story of Ancient Israel.  What some are now designating as the Hebrew Scriptures.  The distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament is only a Christian one.  For the Jewish community there is only one Testament and they refer to it as the Tanak.  The Christian Bible divides Older Testament into four sections.  The First being the Pentateuch, the first five chapters of the bible which tells the basic story of the Israelite people which includes laws to guide them in living.  There we have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  Then come the numerous historical books, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Chronicles and others which talk about the political history of the Israelites Nation.  Then we have the books of Poetry and Wisdom, the book of Job, Psalms Proverbs etc. Then it come the prophetic writings:  Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel to name a few.  In these we find stories where God calls prophets to speak on his behalf to warn nations that if they keep doing things the way they are, that calamity will come down upon them.

            The New Testament contains the stories of the Christians.  It begins with four different accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry in the Gospels:  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  The story continues with the history of the first Christians in the book of Acts.  Then we have the records of the early church through Paul’s letters to various churches, what we call the epistles.  Then the New Testament ends with the Book of Revelation which is the prophesy of what the world will be like in the culmination of the things to come. 

The over arching theme of the Old and New Testament is the grace and love of God.  Throughout the Bible, God longs to be in relationship with humankind, God blesses humankind with an abundance so that all may have what they need to live whole sustainable lives.  However God also gives humankind free will, we can either move towards God and heeds Gods call to spread the blessing of abundance or we can move away from God and deal with the consequences.  What the stories of the Old Testament are trying to do is to explain why life is difficult.   Beginning with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we hear stories of the consequences of people and nations who fall short of God’s call for all of creation to live in right relationship with each other.  God’s will is justice for all of God’s creation. 

The law is the same throughout the Old and New Testaments.  It is grounded in covenant, which is God’s commitment to be in relationship God’s people.  The punishment that nations and peoples suffer in the Bible is not by God coming down on them to smite for their bad behavior.  Rather the punishment suffered is a result of a a nation living in unjust ways, where wealth is held by few while many live in poverty, where nations fall by their own arrogance and abuse of the earth leads to plagues, storms and famine. 

Unfortunately misinterpretation and misunderstanding have given the Old Testament a bad reputation in Christian Church history.  Throughout history some have incorrectly interpreted the New Testament as being over and against the Old Testament.  Pieces of it have been taken out of context and misunderstood to validate such things as violence against Jewish folk, the taking back the Holy Land through the crusades and conquering new lands in the name of Jesus. 

The Gospel of John has been misused many times for this purpose.  In it we read, “He came to what was his own and his own people did not accept him.  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God”   This text has been used to discriminate against people of the Jewish faith and the Hebrew scriptures.  But if we take into account the context in which this gospel was written, we remember that the early Christians whom the evangelist John writes to were part of the Jewish community but in conflict with their faith community because of their belief that Jesus was the messiah sent by God to be the embodiment of God’s grace and love.  They were expelled from their church home, the synagogue and so they had to carve a new church home for themselves.  What this newly formed community needed was comfort and assurance and John provides it for them by recalling that Jesus wasn’t accepted by his people either.

The God of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament are the same.  In the Christian tradition we believe that Jesus is God incarnate.  That God loved the world so much that God poured Godself down into the human form of Jesus.  And the New Testament very clearly states that the incarnation of Jesus did not do away with all the teachings that came before him, as he states in the gospel of Matthew, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” Matthew 5:17-18 

The accomplishment of the Law is love and God’s love and grace are found in the stories of both Old and New Testaments.  Do not think that one is better then the other because it is all God’s story.  May it be so.  Amen.

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[i] Kathleen C. Ackley, Project Editor; writers: Kealahou Alika…[et al.] Affirming Our Faith:  A Congregations Guide to Confirmation. (Cleveland: United Church Press, 2008),  44.