Thoughts on the Christian Life

Sermon January 29, 2012

2012-02-02T07:44:00.001-08:00

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.

Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that "no idol in the world really exists," and that "there is no God but one." Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth-- as in fact there are many gods and many lords-- yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. "Food will not bring us close to God." We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.

In the Epistle lesson today Paul gives us something very interesting to think about, for he lays out a distinction between what can be done and what should be done. The issue is basically this; in ancient Rome there were a lot of temples. And in those temples you would go and make an animal sacrifice to a particular deity. This sacrifice was done for all of the usual reasons, like you wanted a new chariot or a nice crop of wheat or you had lost a bundle on the gladiatorial games and you now owed a guy named Maximus the Chin a bunch of money. It was more or less a way of maintaining a relationship with whatever deity you were sacrificing to and hopefully receiving a little benefit from that deity’s largesse. The way this usually worked was that when you went in you brought an animal, the priest would sacrifice it and then after it was sacrificed you would all sit down to a big meal of whatever it was that you sacrificed which was usually followed by a little interaction with the temple prostitutes – all good clean family fun. However, there was a problem. Let’s say you brought in a lamb. Well if there were four of you and even if one of those four was a growing teenager you were probably not going to eat an entire lamb, so those that ran the temple needed to do something with the leftovers. So they would sell them, either out of the back of the temple or at the market. In many cities the temple and the butcher shop were the same thing. For many people then the only meat that they could get was meat that had already been sacrificed to an idol. It would be like us going to the supermarket and in the meat section finding pork chops that had been sacrificed to Artemis and a rib roast that had been dedicated to Hephaestus and so on. In a town like Corinth, the town to which Paul is writing, there is a very good chance that if you wanted meat you were going to have to get it from the temple. Meaning that before it had gotten to your plate it had been sacrificed to an idol and whatever other less then wholesome things that occurred inside one of the Temples. As a result of this many Jews who lived in places like Corinth who had no access to a kosher deli found that it was easiest to simply become vegetarians. After all no one ever sacrificed a rutabaga to Jupiter.

And of course in these early days of the Church there were no second generation Christians. Most of what you had were either Jews who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah or former pagans who had also come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. As a result it seems that the pagan converts who knew full well what went on in those temple sacrifices had trouble eating the meat because it had too many associations with their former life. They remembered being in the Temple and dancing around in their underpants while the priest of Hera slaughtered their goat or whatever. However; it also appears that there were those among the Christians in Corinth who had a much different take on the whole temple sacrifice thing. These Christians happily picked up meat at the market which had been sacrificed to idols. So the question then that Paul must answer is who is right – can you or can you not eat food that has been sacrificed to idols?

It is a fairly straightforward question and for all intents and purposes it can be answered with a simple yes or no, but Paul does not do that – he instead divides his answer into two parts. The first is what we might call the theological answer in which he says well of course you can eat it because the gods to which that the meat has been sacrificed are not gods at all, but just figments of peoples fevered imaginations, so who really cares. But he does not end it there. He does not by tell all of those that have a problem with the meat that was sacrificed to idols to suck it up, he instead backs off and asks about the human dimensions of such an action. To this Paul says, “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.” Do you see the distinction Paul is making? There is a difference between what you can do and what you should do. And you cannot make your decisions in isolation they must be done with others in mind. In Corinth, some might find their faith destroyed or severely hampered if they were to see fellow Christians eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols, so Paul is asking for graceful restraint.

Wouldn’t it be marvelous if we lived in a world where people understood and obeyed this view of reality? With the question before we do anything, not being can we do it, but rather should we do it. I once heard a debate in which someone was claiming they could do a certain action because the Bible did not say that they couldn’t. The person on the other side of the debate said that if that is the case the Bible also does not explicitly say that they could not throw their grandmother down an elevator shaft so that must be OK too. You see Paul is pointing out a way of living that rather than having to look at the law and examine it as an entity in and of itself rather to put every thought and deed into the love of Christ. We cannot think of our actions in a vacuum we must consider what they mean for other people. Why would those in Paul’s day abstain from eating food sacrificed to idols - because in doing so they are showing forth the love of Christ. They are saying to their fellow believers that while they know the theological distinction that makes eating meat sacrificed to idols lawful they find the persons individual relationship with Christ more important than a legal distinction. Paul is saying that God’s people are always more important than being right.

Some of you may remember a scene from a few years ago during the baseball playoffs. The Texas Rangers had just won the division series over the Tampa bay Rays and they went to the locker room to do the usual dousing of each other in champagne, except there was a difference. One of the Rangers players by the name of Josh Hamilton is a recovering addict. His addiction had been so severe that it nearly ended his baseball career. He eventually cleaned up, but because of his past he feels that he cannot be around any drugs or alcohol, lest he fall back into his old lifestyle. And this is where the great part of the story comes in. His teammates decided that rather than pouring champagne on each other as would be the norm they would instead use ginger ale so that their teammate could participate. They of course did not have to do this, they are grown men and if you look at baseball salaries you know that they can certainly afford to waste the champagne, but they decided that something else was more important and that was their teammate.

That is what Paul is talking about today, putting others ahead of what you can or cannot do. Our behavior should not be based on what is legal, but on what helps our fellow human beings. What helps our fellow man to best see the love of Christ? Being a Christian is not a life lived in a vacuum, but is rather a life spent with all the community of saints. And there will be times where we will be called upon to show gracious restraint so as to help others to grow in their love and knowledge of Jesus Christ all the days of their life.

Sermon January 1, 2012

2012-01-25T13:25:00.001-08:00

Luke 2:15-21

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name which among other things means we do not read from the first Chapter of John’s Gospel like we do every other Sunday after Christmas. In addition the Sunday after Christmas like the Sunday after Easter is also known as international assistant’s day, because it is always the Sunday when the Assistant Rector gives the sermon. But as I have no assistant I must violate this most ancient of rules that was first established by the Apostle Paul in 58 AD when he had Timothy preach on the Sunday after Christmas, because Paul was relaxing at his timeshare on Crete.

But back to The Feast of the Holy Name; the reason we celebrate this feast today is fairly obvious for as our scripture says this morning “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” And obviously today is eight days after Christmas so it would have been on this day that Jesus would have been circumcised and given the name Jesus. He is called Jesus because when the Angel came to Mary he told her “you will name him Jesus.” This is of course not the first time in scripture that God has told people what to name their children. The Angel told Zechariah concerning John the Baptist “Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.” In the Old Testament God commands Abraham to name his son Isaac, which means laughter, because when God told Sarah that she was going to have a child in her old age she “laughed to herself.” The name Jesus comes from Hebrew and means roughly “the lord is salvation.” It is actually a shortening of the name Joshua. And once you know the definition of Jesus and what his purpose was in coming to earth it is also fairly obvious why he got the name that he did. For if God was sending his salvation to everyone, it would probably make sense that he would send someone named “The Lord is Salvation” to actually do the work.

That being said I am not sure we are any closer to answering the question about why we celebrate this day. Do we simply do it because we know that it happened and we can easily date it or is there more to it? Well obviously if I am going to ask a question like that, you know that the answer is that there is more to it. In some ways it is a little more difficult for us to understand because names in our day and age often are chosen for how they sound in combination with our last name or what celebrity is popular. My dad was actually named by his sister because he was the last of seven children and it appears that my grandparents had simply grown tired of coming up with new names. But names historically have been more then something you picked because it sounded nice. Names actually were thought to contain something of the reality of the actual person that you were discussing. It was not simply a way of identifying someone, but something of their essence was contained in the pronouncement of their name. We see this exalted stature of names in the 10 Commandments when we are told not to take the Lord’s name in vain. The idea being that in the name of God is something of the essence of God and if we debase his name with trivial things like saying, “Oh my God this is an awesome churro” we are lowering God himself. But the use of a name is not simply something that we should avoid in cases of trivialities, but is also something to be embraced at the appropriate times. When we end our prayers by saying “in Christ name we pray.” We are doing more than telling Jesus hello, we are invoking the power of Jesus that is linked to the power of the name of Jesus. We are tying up our prayers in the power of Christ and the means by which we do this is the invocation of his name. The naming of Jesus then is more than simply a formality, for in the name of Jesus there is something of Jesus himself.

Because of a happy coincidence we actually have a rather prominent display of the name of Jesus today in Church. Since the liturgical color is white our frontal happens to contain the traditional monogram of the name of Jesus. You may have seen it before. It is the letters IHS. Which of course begs the question if Jesus is named Jesus how does IHS in any way relate to his name. Well it is actually a little difficult to connect the dots, but I will give it a quick try. In Greek the name of Jesus is spelled Iota, Eta, Sigma, Omicron, Upsilon, Sigma. The first letter Iota looks like an I does in our alphabet while the second letter Eta looks like an H. That is how you get the I and H, they are the first two letters in the Greek spelling of Jesus. But what about the S? Well the last letter in Greek is of course a Sigma which does not look like an S, but rather looks like well a Sigma (kind of a sideways M). In Latin however as in English the last letter of Jesus is of course an S. So what we have if you can follow this is the first and second letters of the name of Jesus as found in the Greek and the last letter as found in Latin. And finally if that is not confusing enough I should add that in Greek the letter Iota when it is the first letter in a word is not pronounced like our I but rather like a Y. So it would be pronounced more like “Yesus.” As to why we use a J and not a Y I will simply say blame the Germans.

Now that we are done with that bunny trail I would like to return to the name of Jesus and why we remember it. The 12^th century French Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, was one of the great champions and lovers of the name of Jesus and wrote about it in some of the most beautiful ways. So I would like to end with a rather lengthy quote from him which does far more justice to the beauty and power of the name of Jesus than I will ever be able to produce. It reads:

“The sweet Name of Jesus produces in us holy thoughts, fills the soul with noble sentiments, strengthens virtue, begets good works, and nourishes pure affections. All spiritual food leaves the soul dry, if it contain not that penetrating oil, the Name Jesus. When you take your pen, write the Name Jesus: if you write books, let the Name of Jesus be contained in them, else they will possess no charm or attraction for me; you may speak, or you may reply, but if the Name of Jesus sounds not from your lips, you are without unction and without charm. Jesus is honey in our mouth, light in our eyes, a flame in our heart. This name is the cure for all diseases of the soul. Are you troubled? Think but of Jesus, speak but the Name of Jesus, the clouds disperse, and peace descends anew from heaven. Have you fallen into sin? So that you fear death? Invoke the Name of Jesus, and you will soon feel life returning. No stubbornness of the soul, no weakness, no coldness of heart can resist this holy Name; there is no heart which will not soften and open in tears at this holy name. Are you surrounded by sorrow and danger? invoke the Name of Jesus, and your fears will vanish. The Name of Jesus is the purest, and holiest, the noblest and most indulgent of names, the Name of all blessings and of all virtues; it is the Name of the God-Man, of sanctity itself. To think of Jesus is to think of the great, infinite God Who, having given us His life as an example, has also bestowed the necessary understanding, energy and assistance to enable us to follow and imitate Him, in our thoughts, inclinations, words and actions.”

May it be so this day and forevermore.

Sermon January 8, 2012

2012-01-25T13:23:00.001-08:00

Mark 1:4-11

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

One of the obsessions of the latter part of the twentieth century and early twenty first century has been new translations of the Bible. There seem to be more Bible translations these days than there are citizens of South Dakota. Some Bible’s are translated to be word for word from the original text, others are translated with the idea of conveying the original meaning, while worrying less about the actual words, and still others strive to put the Bible in everyday language using popular phrases and idioms. Some of these have been helpful, while others seem to have been so consumed with their agenda that they forgot that they were actually dealing with Holy Scripture. I think of one particular example which translated the passage we have this morning in which the voice came from heaven and said "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased" and decided that it would sound better with God saying “That’s my boy.” Call me old fashioned, but this translation seems to lose a bit of the gravity as well as most of the meaning of the original text. In saying “that’s my boy” we learn nothing more than if someone told you that they drive a red car – it is simply identifies a relationship but little else. But when we are told that Jesus is the beloved and God is well pleased with him that changes the whole picture - telling us something wonderful about God the father and the relationship that he has with his son Jesus.

Today is the first Sunday after the Epiphany which is also known as the Baptism of our Lord for fairly obvious reasons. Epiphany is one of the more clear names given to things we commemorate in the church, because it is remembering an epiphany – the moment when the scales were lifted and people saw Jesus for who he really was. There are actually three events that are commemorated during the Epiphany: 1) the visit of the Magi 2) that most Episcopalian of miracle turning water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana 3) what we have today the Baptism of Jesus. The baptism of Jesus is an Epiphany reading because it contains one of the more direct unveilings of the identity of Jesus. God tells us that Jesus is the beloved son with whom he is well pleased.

Mark’s Gospel is in many ways the Readers Digest version of the Gospels. It contains 11,304 words whereas both Matthew and Luke contain over 18,000 words. And as a result of its brevity, Mark tends not to waste a lot of words. So if he says something it is worth pondering why it is in there. This is of course true with all of the Bible, but even more so with Mark for he is something of the Joe Friday of the Gospel writers. So the question then is what is Mark trying to let us know by telling us the words God spoke after Jesus came up from the water?

To begin to see its importance we need a little bit of context. Mark’s Gospel has no birth narrative and instead begins by telling us a bit about John the Baptist, or John the Baptizer as he calls him. By verse 9 of the first chapter we have our reading for today, the baptism of Jesus. And then by verse 16 of the same chapter Jesus begins calling his disciples. So in the first 16 verses of Mark we are introduced to the guy who will introduce Jesus and then we are introduced to Jesus himself who then gets baptized and calls the disciples. A lot happens in just 16 verses. For comparisons sake in the first 16 chapters of Matthew’s gospel we have learned that Zerubbabel is the father of Eliakim. But back to Mark. The context of the announcement of God that he is pleased with Jesus takes place at the moment between our introduction to the person of Jesus and the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. You could call the baptism the first day of the rest of his life if you were so inclined. But in Mark’s estimation this is from where everything begins. And that beginning is marked by a very natural and very tender scene of a father watching as his son goes off into the world. And before his son sets out he wants his son to know how pleased he is with him.

One of the discussions that has entered theology and biblical study in the past fifty or so years has had to do with gender – whether or not we should refer to God in masculine terms and so on. I really do not want to open that entire can of worms this morning except to point out one thing. When much of the criticism is leveled it is done so from us up to God. In other words someone will say that they had a lousy father therefore they cannot think of God in fatherly terms. And while I know that many people unfortunately grew up with abusive or wicked fathers, this in no way changes who God the father is. When we look at God we are not to project our earthly understandings up to him, but rather try to understand and imitate the heavenly perfection of our father in heaven. God’s fatherhood is a perfect fatherhood. The lovely actions we see God performing for Jesus this morning are the actions of the perfect father in heaven. NT Wright says it like this “If we start the journey imagining that our God is a bully, an angry threatening parent ready to yell at us, slam the door on us, or kick us out into the street because we haven’t quite made the grade, we will fail at the first whisper of temptation. But if we remember the voice that spoke those powerful words of love we will find a way through.” That is the perfect father that is revealed to us today, not some second rate bully or petty tyrant, but a perfect loving and wonderful father whom all fathers should strive to imitate. What is both fascinating and wonderful about this scene is that it shows us God acting in a way that is not strange and foreign, but is ordinary and wonderful. Jesus, while being the son of God still needs to be told that he is loved by his father and God the father feels the need to let his son know how he feels about him. When Genesis tells us that we are created in God’s image I think many of us think that this means we kind of look like God, but we tend to forget that the image goes much deeper than this. The relationships as modeled in God are relationships that resound with us, like the love between father and son or mother and daughter and so on. And the love and affection that God the Father feels towards Jesus he also feels for us. He is the perfect father. He is a father who knows that we need to be told that we are beloved.

There is an old joke about an elderly couple who go to marriage counseling. When they get there the counselor asks them what the problem is to which the woman replies; “He never tells me that he loves me.” The marriage counselor sensing that the woman was exaggerating looked over to the man and asked if this was true or not. To which the man said, “Look I told her I loved he when we got married 53 years ago, if I change my mind I will let her know.”

This is not the picture of God that emerges today. He does not send his son to earth and tell him to report back when he is done. No here at the point where Jesus is going to begin the long trek towards Jerusalem that will ultimately lead to his crucifixion, God speaks up and tells him how he feels about him. Like the life we live as parents or as friends we cannot guarantee that everything will work out perfectly, that there will not be any struggles, but we can tell our children and loved ones that we love them and that we are pleased with them. Today we see our perfect heavenly father expressing his love and affection for his son – a love and affection that he holds for every one of us. It is a love that we should know and a love that we should share. Our life will not always be easy or simple, but it makes the journey so much easier knowing that we have a father in heaven who loves us and is well pleased with us this day and forevermore.

Sermon January 15, 2012

2012-01-25T13:20:00.000-08:00

1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. The LORD called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, `Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening." [Then the LORD said to Samuel, "See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever."

Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, "Samuel, my son." He said, "Here I am." Eli said, "What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you." So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, "It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him."

As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.]

If you are like most people and I would put myself in this category as well, your understanding of the Old Testament is a little fuzzy. We all seem to know the big things, God created the heavens and earth, there was a big flood, there were a lot of guys who had names that began with the letter “J” and one of them had a colorful coat. Somewhere in there we probably remember David and maybe one of the prophets who generally seemed to be in a pretty bad humor. But generally, it is a little hard to remember how exactly we got from Abraham to Jesus. Well obviously I am not going to explain all of that in one sermon, but as we look at today’s Old Testament text, it helps a bit to understand just where we are historically.

So here goes my attempt at the Old Testament in two minutes: Abraham was told he would be the father of many nations. He had a son named Isaac who had a child named Jacob. Jacob then had twelve sons the most famous of which would be Joseph who was sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph is taken to Egypt where he thrives and eventually his brothers and their families settle in Egypt at his request. The offspring of Joseph and his brothers stay in Egypt for roughly 400 years and grow from around seventy people to well over a million. The Egyptian Pharaoh decides they are a threat and begins to persecute them severely and as a result God raises up Moses to set his people free. Moses leads the Children of Israel out of Egypt and they wander around the desert for forty years when finally Joshua leads them into the Promised Land. In the Promised Land the twelve tribes (which are based upon the 12 sons of Jacob) settle in various areas. After Joshua dies, Israel is ruled by a series of Judges for about 300 years. This was not the happiest of times for the nation of Israel as it was marked by instability and moral depravity. Many of the judges were also corrupt. Which brings us to today, where we meet Eli, the second to last judge of Israel. He had a career that was pretty much a disaster. His sons were rotten and the Israelites lost a major battle with the Philistines in which the Ark of the Covenant was captured. And also today there is the last judge of Israel, Samuel. His mother Hannah was thought to be barren, but had promised God that if she has a son she would dedicate the son to God. As a result, he ends up growing up in Eli’s house. In today’s reading Samuel is lying alone in the dark in the Temple of the Lord when he hears a voice and supposing it is Eli calling him he rushes in to Eli’s room and says, “Here I am.” To which Eli tell him that he did not call him. After this happens for a third time Eli perceives that it is God calling the boy and instructs Samuel to say when he hears the voice again, "Speak, for your servant is listening." Samuel obeys and when God calls for a fourth time Samuel says that he is listening. God then tells Samuel that he is going to punish the house of Eli, which eventually does happen and Samuel becomes the last Judge of Israel. It will be Samuel who anoints Saul as king and then later David. But here we have Samuel as a young boy and Eli who despite all of his family troubles gives a wonderful piece of advice and that piece of advice is to listen to God. And this morning I would like to take a few moments to reflect on this idea of listening to God for I think it is simultaneously one of the most neglected and most abused aspects of being a Christian. I use the term neglected because we quite frankly live in such a noisy time that it is nearly impossible to find a moment to listen. And I say abused because I find that often people will insist that God told them something that generally appears to be something that God would never tell anyone to do. So what does it mean to listen to God and how can we make it an integral part of our life? How do we truly and fully listen to God? Well let me offer three suggestions that we can learn from Samuel this morning.

The first thing is silence. When Samuel heard from God he was lying in a quiet place in the dark. And interestingly, quietness may be the hardest thing for us to imitate in this story. Just take a quick moment and think about your life and how many opportunities there are for noise. In your bedroom you surely have a radio, if not a television, the same goes for your kitchen and living room. If you are going to take a walk, you are always able to take an ipod or portable radio of some sort. If you go to any store they are most likely piping in some sort of music. And these are just the obvious forms of noise. Noise does not always have to be audible – there are billboards, computers, newspapers, magazines, all of these things distract you from listening. If you don’t believe me try reading an article in a magazine while talking on the phone – something is going to suffer. Now of course none of these things is inherently evil, it is just that we have to be very deliberate about silence otherwise it is quite easy to never hear from God because we are never quiet enough to hear from him. God often comes to us in the still small voice and if we are not careful we might miss him.

The second thing we can learn from Samuel is that we need to be in a mindset to hear from God. For it was only after Eli told Samuel that it was God speaking to him that he actually heard from God. When he thought it was Eli he did not hear a thing. Think about it like this: Have you ever found yourself in a situation that requires a lot of concentration – like installing a new garbage disposal or defusing a nuclear weapon. When you are doing these tasks what happens if someone comes up and asks you a completely unrelated question - like who did the Yankees start in game 2 of the 1977 World Series (it was Catfish Hunter if you are curious) it will take you some time to hear the question. Not in the sense of the audible tone of someone’s voice, but in the sense of what is actually contained in the question. This is because your mind is one place and the question is from quite a different one. Samuel only heard from God when he was looking for God to speak. The point is even if we are quiet and have removed all distraction if our mind is thinking about something else it will be difficult to hear from God. I once heard someone say that if you are going to go on a silent retreat you need to go for at least a week, because the first few days you are going to be thinking about what you left behind and the last few days you are going to be thinking about what you are going back to, so it is only in the few days in the middle that you are truly silent. And of course that is nice for those that have seven days to get away in silence, but what of us who generally do not have this kind of free time? How do we get in the mood to listen? I think it largely has do with getting in a mindset where we can hear the voice. Like my earlier ridiculous example, if you had been reading the sports page when someone asked you a baseball question you probably would be in a much better place to hear. Similarly we will probably be in a better position to hear from God if we are doing “God” things. Things like reading Holy Scripture, praying, reading devotional, attending Church, assuming a posture of thanksgiving and so on. You can better hear the more in tuned with the subject matter you are. So the more you study and contemplate God the greater the possibility that you will hear from him.

And the final thing to do is like Samuel we need to check what we have heard from God with another person. Samuel reluctantly tells Eli that his household will fall and Eli confirms that it is true. When we hear from God it is always good to check with someone else to make sure it was really God speaking and not just some bad Chinese food.

God does and will speak to us, but like Samuel we need to be prepared to hear. And when we do hear to be faithful to what God has told us. Being a good listener requires some work on our part, but the reward is contact with the almighty and what could be greater than that.

Sermon January 22, 2012

2012-01-25T13:15:00.000-08:00

Mark 1:14-20

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea-- for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

Today’s Gospel lesson contains one of the better known scenes, the calling of the first disciples - Simon, Andrew, James and John. It is so famous that it has even inspired a Children’s song called “Fishers of men,” which I vaguely remember singing at summer camp. And the fact that most everyone knows this story is fine, but there is a problem that can occur when stories become too well known. If we think of today’s reading as just a historical event like we might remember the signing of the Magna Carte we are in many senses missing the point. Because what Jesus is asking of Peter, Andrew, James and John is also the exact same thing that he asks of us all and that is to follow him. In issuing this invitation, Jesus is asking us to follow in the same way that the disciples did. Not a few hours a week or when we can fit it in, he asks for the same total commitment that was displayed by those first four disciples. Who quite literally left everything, their livelihood, their families and all that was comfortable and familiar to them and they followed. The commitment that they showed is the commitment for which Jesus’ asks.

And when you look at it from the perspective of what those apostles did it sounds rather scary and almost insane, walking away from your job and family like one of the rats of Hamelin (not that the rats had jobs, but you know what I mean). It is of course much nicer to think of it as a story that happened to some guys long ago and that the commitment they showed was something reserved for only those who were around when Jesus was physically on this earth, but at the end of Matthew before Jesus ascends into heaven he tells the disciples to go and make more disciples. There is no distinction drawn between the first disciples and those that were to come.

But what prevents us from the full discipleship for which Christ asks? It may be different from times past, for every generation has different issue with which they must deal. But I think one of our main problems that prevents true discipleship today has to do with our consumerist way of viewing the world in which we believe that all things that exist outside of ourselves are there to fulfill a need of ours. And if it does not fulfill a need we move on to something else that does. In other words everything starts and begins with me. We get to decide good and bad right and wrong. And of course this mindset has crept into the Church, both on what we could crudely call the supply and demand sides of the equation. Churches are constantly trying to figure out what it is that people want, while people are constantly moving from place to place in order to find the worship experience that meets their needs. But look at the call of Jesus this morning. It is not a promise of a more wonderful spiritual experience or that he is going to make anyone happier or smarter or better looking, but it is a call simply to follow him. That is the essence of being a Christian, it is about following Jesus. Yes there may be benefits and things we enjoy, but there also may not. At its heart Christianity has nothing to do with reaching a spiritual high or living a life without troubles. It only has to do with what Jesus tells us today and that is to follow him. What Christ asks for is quite simple, and that is all of us. When Christ called the disciples they did not ask what kind of worship style he was offering or pull out their calendars and find when would be a good time for this following to take place, because that was not the kind of call that it was – it was a call for everything. And ultimately anything that is labeled as Christian should only exist to the point that it aids people in being followers of Jesus. And until we do that we will be schizophrenic Christians – following Christ sometimes when it works out, but not others when something more interesting is going on.

And this call can seem quite frightening because it asks us to give up control. If I can schedule God I can tell God what to do - God must be there to meet my demands and needs. But if I submit everything to God, I lose all control and of course the fear is that instead of having a nice vacation on Grand Cayman I might end up working in an orphanage in the Sudan. We like the scheduled God, the God who is expected to show up and make us feel better, but then politely goes away so that we can get around to doing the things that we really enjoy. But that is certainly not the call that is issued today.

I must say that quite frankly churches have failed miserably at making disciples of Christ and I would count myself guilty in this as well. The tendency of a priest is to want to make people happy, to make sure that everyone is having a nice time, because if you are having a nice time you will keep coming. And the means by which we usually do this is to find out what people want and try to fulfill it. We try and come up with programs that people will find enjoyable, music that people like, we try and make sure that our sermons are amusing and that we are not too demanding – one hour a week is all we ask. But in this attempt to try and make sure everyone is having a good time I think that we have actually made people more miserable. We have led them to believe that God can be scheduled and that we are here to help them with their God planning. We have aided people in an unhealthy lifestyle, a lifestyle that says that we are autonomous and capable of making good, wise and perfect decisions. But this is ultimately folly, one cannot be a part time follower of Christ or as Jesus says “No one can serve two masters.” We either must have God as our master or ourselves as our master, but we cannot have both. When we try to pencil God in here and there we are not serving him at all. We can either be disciples of ourselves or we can be a disciple of Christ, but we cannot be both. For as God tells us he is a jealous God, he is not interested in part of us.

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship he says that, “When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die.” Which is something I don’t think you will see in many church brochures, but that is what lies at the heart of the call - dying to everything that is not of Christ so that we can be resurrected with Christ. We must take our self absorption and autonomy and let them die. I was recently looking through the religion section of the newspaper and noticed an advertisement for a church under which there was this slogan – eight services, three preachers, your choice. I suppose this was to be clever and I am not going to label that particular church a den of Satan, but it has it exactly wrong, church is not about our choosing, it is not a store where we get to pick out the things that we really like. Church is about making us disciples of Christ, it is about us answering the call of come follow. It is about not knowing where we are going, but trusting all the same. For as Jesus tells us “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

If we are to truly follow Jesus we must surrender all to him. We must give up control, we must give up the belief that our decisions are superior to those of God and we must freely and totally submit our will to God’s full and perfect will. It is definitely scary, but it is ultimately the only true way to live. For being a disciple of Christ is the only way in which we will truly find rest for our souls.