Christ on the Mount - What DOES the Sermon on the Mount have to say to us?

Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12

I once worked at a small company that had recently hired two hot shot entrepreneurs. These men had both come from wealthy backgrounds, they were quite smart, and they had attended top flight colleges, where they had succeeded at every class they took.

When they left school, they both started companies in different areas. One man held basic patents on the MRI process that is now used in all those imaging machines. The other guy was more of a salesman, and deal-maker, able to take relatively low-tech items, make them through his wife’s contacts in Southeast Asia, and sell them at a tremendous mark-up through friends in America. They both were making excellent money, and somehow, they both came to work at a company I was later hired into.

These men, as I said, were successful – they had always been successful – and so they had become arrogant. When they traveled on business they stayed out late and were often late to breakfast meetings. They were full of advice for me and the younger members of the staff about how to dress. But I noticed something about them as I traveled with them and worked with them – although people listened to them and their stories – no one actually liked them – they didn’t even like each other. Of course, they were simply a couple of the most obnoxious men I knew. And our company suffered because of their arrogance, their bullying, and their overconfidence. Eventually, one was fired and I took his job.

These men suffered from a case of being too rich in their spirit. They had never met anything they couldn’t handle, and it damaged their souls. Neither one, I’m sorry to say, had any interest in the things of God, for, I imagined, they figured that they would eventually figure out a way to beat death. The one I replaced was dead within ten years.

One of the characteristics of our God which is often overlooked is how polite God is. Much has been made by certain atheists of complaining that they can’t believe in a God that would send people to Hell. The reality is that God doesn’t send anyone to Hell. God gives us the opportunity to join Him in Heaven by following His Son Jesus Christ – or not. If we don’t want to be in the Kingdom of Heaven, if we don’t want to follow Jesus, if we don’t want to live under God’s rules, God gives us the opportunity to live away from Him, in a land where other creatures who rejected God and Christ live, a place where those angels who did not choose to live under God’s rule live, where people such as Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Pol Pot, Adolph Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, and many other independent-minded people from history live.

You aren’t sent to Hell – it is simply the other option if you don’t want to live under God’s rule. It is the land outside of Heaven, the land where God politely ignores you, the land where you can do whatever you can get away with. In Hell, all you have to do is to convince enough other independent-minded people to do what you want and you’re all set. Of course, having read the history of some of these independent-minded people who aren’t nearly as polite as God, I would much prefer to live under God’s rule. You see, Hell is not bad because God has used His power to make it bad. Hell is bad because God has chosen not to exert His power there, but instead to let independent-minded people exert their power there over one another.

It is people who are too rich in their spirit who end up outside the Kingdom of Heaven, because they are too spirit-rich to humble themselves before God’s rule. They wish to be their own god, and so God the Father allows them to be their own god – away from His Kingdom. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

One of the differences I have seen between the rich in spirit and the poor in spirit is that the poor in spirit recognize how much they depend upon other people, and so they learn to care and to love those around them. The rich in spirit often simply look at other people as objects, robots who have certain functions in life, such as making dinner for me, mowing the lawn for me, serving me at the restaurant, teaching me, loving me, etc. People objects are not loved, they are used and needed, but not loved by the rich in spirit. And when death comes to a people-object, the rich in spirit are disturbed and uncomfortable, because this is inconvenient to them, they no longer have that people-object working for them, like a car that has broken down, it is inconvenient, and needs to be replaced. And so with the rich in spirit, there is no true mourning because there never was a true love for the lost person. There was only the familiarity and convenience of that people-object. And so, they will never be comforted because they never truly mourned. They only replaced the people-object and went on with their life.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” But those who are poor in spirit…they love others deeply for they recognize their shared humanity. They recognize that death is the shattering of a unique portrait of God, an image of God, and that death is much more than the simple breaking of a unique, one-of-a-kind antique vase. And because they realize this, and mourn so deeply because of this, they are the ones who will be comforted one day when they see their loved one again alive with them in the Kingdom of Heaven, for you must recognize your connection to other people to mourn them, and that is your humbleness that keeps you from becoming a little god in your own mind. And so, through the power of Christ and His Resurrection, you will be comforted one day.

There are different types of people in this world. Some are flashy and loud, boasting and proclaiming their greatness and importance to all. We see them in politics, we see them in sports, we see them in the business world like the two guys I once worked with, and we see them in the world of celebrity, people who are famous for being famous and for no other reason. They get their attention, some people love them, and they are remembered.

There are also people who become famous and known because of their evil. Bank robbers, dictators, mass murderers, terrorists. They get their attention and people hate them, and they are remembered.

There are also those people who are not remembered. Some are not remembered because they never do anything for anyone else. They are quickly forgotten.

But there are also those people who work hard, who have tremendous power under the control of their personalities, who go to work every day, who get up early in the morning and prepare things for their families, who took their jobs seriously and did many things for many people – nothing spectacular, nothing grand, but important. They might have been the bus driver who got up at 5 am to warm up the bus for the children on the snowy morning, the baker who had the donuts waiting by 5:30 am, the custodian who came in at 3 am to make sure the furnace was operating, the truck driver who drove through that storm to make sure the groceries or the gasoline would be waiting for everyone in town on Friday morning. That person might have been the secretary who stayed until 6 o’clock to type that last letter, the teacher who stayed up until 11:30 to grade those last few papers, the engineer who checked and double-checked the loading on that bridge last weekend, the nurse who lifted Mr. Smith out of bed for the third time today so he could walk to the bathroom.

Like powerful farm horses which are under wonderful control, these are the meek of the earth, for that is what the word “meek” referred to in the old days. Not timid, not shy, not mousy, but with great strength under firm control is what the word meant. And “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Indeed they shall, for the famous leave their names and the notorious their legends, but the meek eventually own everything in the world, for it is the meek secretary that takes money from the business owner, the meek gardener who takes money from the rock star, the meek nurse who is paid by the rich woman’s insurance company, the meek caterer who the politician pays to impress people. It is the meek who accomplish everything worthwhile on this earth, and so they inherit the earth after the great ones pass on.

There are some people who are always filled – their lives are successful, their days are relaxed, they never know hunger or thirst. Many Americans are this way, particularly when it comes to food and water – we have enough, we never really feel hunger, we never really feel thirst, we are ok. In fact, I haven’t heard any of you tell me that you plant a garden because you are afraid you’ll go hungry. I haven’t heard any of you tell me you’re going to drill a well or find a spring because you’re afraid you’ll die of thirst. We have been blessed.

Yet there are those among us who hunger and thirst for righteousness. We feel a tremendous emptiness in our lives, we want to do right, we want righteousness in our lives, we complain of injustice, incompetence, a life where we just aren’t able to do the right things we’d love to do. How many of you, if you won the lottery, would build homes for some people? How many of you, if you won the lottery, would pay for someone to get the best medical care in America? How many of you, if you won the lottery, would do something right for someone else, something you can’t do today, something that is out of your price range? How many of you hunger and thirst for righteousness in your lives? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Jesus sets all things right. Sometimes in this life, sometimes we wait for the next life, but if you truly want righteousness as if you had not eaten for a week or drank any water for three days, follow Jesus Christ and you will be filled.

But if you are full of your own righteousness, if you think you are always doing right, if you have become happy at the condition of the world around you – you are not hungry, you are not thirsty, and you will not be filled because you are satisfied with what you have. Your stomach has shrunk to meet the level of righteousness in the world around you and thus, that is all you will find.

Be hungry. Be thirsty. Look for and demand more and more righteousness from yourself and pray for it in the world around you – and you will be filled as Jesus rushes in supplies like the Red Cross arriving after a tornado.

And do you desire revenge? Do you want to correct the world’s wrongs with revenge? Do you want to take all the evil people in the world and make them pay for what they’ve done to the world, to your friends, to you?

That will get you nowhere, for Jesus also said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

Do you want to be shown mercy? We all do. We want mercy – it’s the other guys we seem to want justice for. But Jesus tells us to be merciful, to be kind to people who deserve harshness, to be gentle to those who deserve rough treatment, to love people who did stupid, nasty, evil things and to help them out when they finally lose. And if we show mercy consistently, our Father will show us mercy, allowing us to spend eternity in His Kingdom rather than alone outside with those who do not show mercy.

Will you keep your hearts pure? Will you stay focused upon seeking God’s face? Will you love only God, will you follow God’s Son, will you seek God’s will? “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Of all the comments of Jesus, this one is the hardest, for how do we stay focused upon God? How do we keep from dirtying our hearts with the love of money, the love of pleasure, the love of things, the love of our self and stay focused upon the pure love of God? It is hard, very hard, and that is the path of Holiness, that is the path that leads us to self-discipline, that is the path that demands we crucify daily our other loves, our impurities, our idols. That is what we are focusing upon with our World Changer’s Group on Sunday evenings at 6:30 – how to keep our hearts pure and focused upon God’s will.

And then there is peace. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” But what is the peace that we are to make? Is it peace between tribes of people, is it peace between two different people? Is it peace between nations? Yes, but it is much more than that – it is peace in our own souls. How do you find peace between nations, between tribes, between people? You first help make peace within a person’s soul, by taking away the fear, taking away the worry, taking away the hatred and the anger and the frightening images of death.

And if you want peace within your friend’s soul, you must first find peace within your soul.

How does this peace come? By understanding that God loves you completely. By understanding that God is completely good and always has your long term best interest at heart. By understanding that God has all the power God ever needs to put you in a place of safety, of goodness, of joy – and the only thing that is keeping God from doing this for you is your inability to trust in God’s love, God’s goodness, and God’s power.

Trusting God and having faith mean the same thing. If you trust God completely, you will have complete peace. And when you have complete peace, you can begin to explain that peace and joy to your friends, your neighbors, and your family members.

And you….you will be known as a peacemaker, a child of God. Seek the peace that comes from trusting in God’s love, God’s goodness, and God’s power.

And finally, you will be persecuted. Oh yes, it is coming, it is here already. Perhaps it is the persecution that sends you to the lions, but perhaps not. Perhaps it is the persecution that keeps you from being invited to lunch with a certain group of people you work with. Perhaps it is the persecution where someone gently teases you about whether the Bible has an answer for some question – or perhaps it is the persecution where someone yells and screams in your face because someone years ago told them that if they prayed stronger their mother would live, and they prayed and their mother died. Persecutions will come, and when they come to you, be happy and blessed, for “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
You see, if people persecute you because they recognize you as a follower of Christ, you have become a modern day prophet. You have made the pro team, you are doing what God’s will is because people have become uncomfortable around the Christ that is in you.

Now this persecution should not be because you are acting like a jerk. For notice that the first part says “persecuted for righteousness”. If you are being persecuted because you are doing right, then you are covered by this blessing. So always check yourself –are you doing right? Or are you being a jerk?

You will notice what our readings said. In Micah, God said:

 "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
In the Psalm of David, David asked:
Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?
Who may live on your holy mountain?
and God answered:
The one whose walk is blameless,
who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from their heart;
Are some of these sayings from the sermon hard to follow? Paul pointed out to the Corinthians and us that what seems foolish to the ordinary person is wisdom to us who are being saved.

The path of Holiness, the path that leads to God’s face is not easy. It has been called a narrow path, a path that goes through a "wicket gate."

For most of us, this doesn’t mean much, but for the English pastors and people who came up with this “wicket gate” saying, it had tremendous meaning. For in the game of cricket, what the British play instead of baseball, one player throws a 3 inch leather ball from 66 feet away to hit a 9 inch wide wicket gate, trying to knock the crosspieces off the gate. Imagine trying to walk through this 9-inch-wide wicket gate! Imagine running down a 9-inch wide path!

That is how following the path of Holiness has been compared.

And clearly, we can’t do it consistently.

So that was why Christ had to die.

To defeat the requirements of the law of Moses, Jesus had to die for us. For we could never reach Heaven on our own merits. None of us could remain good enough. The gate is too narrow.

And so Jesus, the Son of God, and God the Father decided that following Jesus was enough, attempting our level best to do what Jesus asked, committing our lives to Jesus. And when the time came to judge our goodness, to decide whether or not God the Father would allow us to spend eternity with Him and Christ, the key question would be – have you been trying to follow Jesus?

Notice it is not: “Did you succeed in following Jesus?” for no one could say yes. But instead, “Have you been trying to follow Jesus?

For a person who is trying to follow Jesus has a poor enough spirit that he or she can be taught, over the decades and centuries and thousands of years, those people whose spirit is poor enough can be taught how to be holy, but those who do not try cannot ever be taught, for they already believe they know the answers. And thus they are not allowed in the Kingdom of Heaven with God the Father and Christ.

So I say to you, be humble in spirit. Seek God’s face. Follow Jesus more and more every day, make learning God’s will and finding God’s face your only priority in life and you will be blessed, know peace, and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Alternative Facts, False News, and the Truth

I was reading a blog post by Professor David Watson about "alternative facts and Christian truth, and the idea that the idea of truth has changed over the years. Where truth once consisted of one particular set of facts, then truth became slanted and spun by propagandists and proponents of particular political view, now it appears that each person sees his or her own particular "truth".

I've been thinking about this for a couple of years, how otherwise intelligent people can end up with views of reality that differ in such remarkable ways. For example, intelligent people from all walks of life disagreed tremendously about the ethical character of Hillary Clinton, which is amazing since her character has been the subject of intense public discussion for the last twenty-five years or so. (Less people disagreed over the ethical character of Donald Trump - people just disagreed over whether or not it was worse than Secretary Clinton's character.)

But our disagreements go far beyond politics, and even moves into the church. What constitutes "sin"? What is salvation? What are the characters of God and Christ?

And I believe that what used to be called the "relativism of truth" actually has a combined theological and personal background basis.

First, the personal side.

I live in West Virginia. Most decent paying jobs in West Virginia require extreme attention be paid to facts, for we are coal miners, steel workers, chemical workers, well drillers, foresters. A section of roof is either correctly supported by beams or it will cave in and people will be killed. Valves are either open or shut - ambiguity about their condition leads to Bhopal-like accidents. Pipes are either appropriately welded or explosions happen. Our lives are based upon definitive, objective facts and the correct interpretation of those facts. And it doesn't depend upon whether or not I like you - is the vale open? Did you shore up the ceiling properly? These are the only important questions when you have dangerous work.

But I have also lived in Atlanta and in New Jersey. In both those areas, most of the high paying jobs are in advertising, marketing, sales, management, finance, education. Facts are somewhat susceptible to being molded by the speaker. My opinion about the success of Ad A or Ad B is what makes the difference in which agency I select - I have little to go on except my admittedly subjective understanding of what makes a good ad, and that is influenced by my opinions of the salespeople from the ad agency. And so, when living in these areas, I find that my people-to-people relationships hold a much higher place in my analysis than "facts" do.That is the way it is in work that is people-based. In addition, in these work areas, people began to work with the idea that "everyone lies a little bit", that spin and slant are to be expected, so everyone began spinning and slanting their "truth" so it was in their best interest.

So depending upon which culture we grew up in, we are more or less concerned with "facts" and we have a different idea of how "hard and fast" facts are.

Then there is the theological angle.

Until the late 1800's, theologians were most concerned with getting an excellent picture of God - all the characteristics of God. What should be emphasized? God's goodness, God's power, God's grace, God's wrath? God was recognized to be very, very complex and theologians spent a great deal of time dealing with that complexity of character.

But somewhere around 1900, it became fashionable to say, "God is love", which is actually a Bible quote, but is just half of a verse from the Book of James. Unfortunately, more and more people began to see "God is love" as the total description of God's character, leaving out all the other messy stuff like when God rained fire and brimstone down on certain towns in the Old Testament or destroyed hundreds of thousands of men overnight outside the walls of Jerusalem.

With that simplicity, it became also rather simple to change our focus upon the inherent tension between God's declaration of what is sinful (the Law of Moses) and the love of Christ, to a sole focus upon loving all people as God loves all people. No longer did we "hate the sin, love the sinner", but now we chose to completely ignore the sin, because if "God is love", all those Old Testament historical facts of God hating sin can be ignored. Right?

In addition, in the 1960's, certain French philosophers and literary experts began to teach us that even the author's opinion of what her writings were about was to be ignored in favor of the opinion of "the reader", and therefore, the idea of "facts" took another hit, with the idea now being that you had a duty to spin the facts, to slant, to even make up truth if it didn't fit your "narrative".

And so we end up with a divide which mirrors the dangerous work/people work divide. We have some churches today focusing upon finding the entire character of God - and others who assure us that "God is love" and that's the end of it, so we need to love all people.

Yet is it possible that in our rush to love all people, we are ignoring the fact that their ceilings are not well-braced, that the whole mountain is about to cave down upon us? Is it possible that we have become the equivalent of the likable salesperson, friends to all, loving everyone, but a bit short on the truth?

And so, is it any wonder, with both of these work and theological dynamics at play, that we have learned to look at the world with a bit of a skeptical eye about the truth, looking more toward the person who is telling us something than the so-called "facts" themselves?

In ancient times, politicians were taught rhetoric and that there were three sources of persuasion power. There were logic/facts, there were emotions,...and there was the personal credibility of the speaker.

Today, we have been told so long that facts aren't important, we have been hit repeatedly with emotional appeals far out of proportion to any real effects political programs can have, and now, all that we are left with is a choice of who to believe. And when the previously respected sources of truth become overwhelmingly supportive of one point of view and slanted "just enough" facts, they lost credibility and other sources of truth became more respected by many individuals.

So, as C.S.Lewis hinted, we need to go back to the old books. Old books, Lewis wrote, are much better than new books written to analyze the old books, for it is the old books that have survived the test of time. We need to stop reading what someone says about Aristotle and read Aristotle. We need to stop reading what a Twentieth Century scholar says about St. Paul and read St. Paul. We need to stop listening to edited sound bites and clipped paragraphs about what our politicians said - and instead listen directly to what they say and do. That is the only way to recover the Truth for our world.

Alone in a Dark Time - Seeking a Light of Hope

Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1-9; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23

It was a very dark night. There was no moon and the stars were covered by a thick layer of clouds. Here in the deep forest of the north, there were no lights, no fires, no streetlamps, no distant blue light of television glowing in someone’s window. All was darkness and danger. The gentle whisper of the snow falling covered up all noises and most of the smells of the forest. This far north, the sun had set for the winter a week before and would not be back for six more weeks. What if the clouds never broke, what if the darkness just continued, what if he never saw anything again?

Here, in the dark, things lurked in the imagination. Was there a wolf out there, what about a grizzly or a polar bear? Mountain lions were reported here. But even without those beasts of flesh and blood, there were the dark creatures of the soul, the memories of dark times past, those ideas from film and books and stories told of creatures of Hell that wandered in the darkness. And wherever the man walked, there were his memories, his personal demons, his own guilts and hates, his desires for revenge and his regrets for what he had done. Here, in the dark, all alone, that tremendous past came back to haunt him. He remembered the evil he had done and he despaired.

He looked down toward his feet. He strained, trying to see his boots, trying to see through the utter blackness of the night. Could he just barely see his kneecap? He thought, “Lord, could you send me some hope!” – What was that?

Something flickered. He’d almost missed it looking at himself.

And then, in the distance, there was again a brief flicker of light. He wasn’t sure he had even seen it, but he had no other choice. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face, it was so dark. So he began to slowly and carefully head toward where the light might have been.

He walked for 15, 20 minutes. There it was again, closer. A face perhaps? Then it was gone.

He corrected his path, turning slightly to the right and kept walking.

All of a sudden, not ten feet from him, a light came on.

It was a cell phone, a man’s face glowing in the reflection of that light. A kindly man’s face, a man’s face who had seen years of trouble but had survived all of it, a man who was surely his rescuer.

The light went out again, and the first man, the man who had been in darkness for a long time spoke. “Are you a friend? Could I see your face again? Do you have a house where I can see light and get warm again?”

…

Have you ever walked in darkness? Have you ever lived for a time when everything you did failed, when everyone you knew turned their back on you, when nothing you touched worked the way you hoped? Have you ever wondered if the darkness would ever end?

I have. I have spent days numb because everything was going wrong. I have laid off workers, giving them a last check and bidding them “good luck!”, knowing I’d never see them again. I have closed businesses, struggling to pay off those business debts over the next few years.

And I have been successful, only to find that my success was hollow, giving me joy for a few days, but then the boredom set in as I looked for a new challenge, a new mountain to climb, a new skill to master.

The devil seems to work on each of us in different ways. Some people suffer from an addiction, a chemical, an activity that they can’t stop by themselves. Other people suffer from a compulsion to evil behavior, whether it be gossip, saying the wrong things, hurting people in sly ways, putting down people who would be our friends. And some people are ensnared by certain types of people, certain types of activities, certain aspects of our modern life that suck us in and drain us of our life-blood like vampires clamped to our necks. These snares are our nemeses.

We all have our particular nemeses, those people or things that seem to actively oppose everything we do. I have two nemeses: Computers and two-cycle engines.

I have a long history with computers. My first computer was a Timex-Sinclair computer. It was the size and shape of a doorstop - and about as useful! You had to program it yourself by typing in the program. It had a membrane keyboard and an add-on module. With the add-on module, which was about the size and shape of a power adaptor, you could expand the 2 kb internal memory to 16 kb. I have a USB drive today that has 16 gigabytes of memory, which means that little thumb drive has about a million times more memory than my first computer had with the expansion module.

So you had to type in the hundred-line program. If you pushed to hard, the expansion module flexed, lost contact, and the whole computer lost everything you’d typed in. That’s how my life with computers began.

Later, at WVU Morgantown, I learned to use a keypunch and create programs using a card deck. You’d type up about 140 cards and then drop the cards – they’d be all out of order, and a single card out of order meant the program failed.

One semester, I spent every evening for two weeks at the computer center until two o’clock in the morning trying to find a bug in a program. I’d make a change and then wait two hours until the slow main system finished printing out my bugs and results. Then I’d make another change and wait another two hours. I finally found out that my keypunch had punched the holes for a semi-colon where I needed a colon – yet had printed a colon properly in ink on the card. I didn’t find the error until I lined up the little holes in the cards.

Later, I’d spend days and days working on my website because of some little error in the computer. And when I worked at Parkersburg Catholic High School, part of my job was maintaining the 75 or so computers they had. Does anyone else think that the devil resides in computers?

I not going to waste your time telling you about my fights with two-cycle engines. Let’s just say that I now own an electric weed eater – and do not plan to ever buy anything with a two-cycle engine if I can help it.

Computers and two-cycle engines. They have stolen several years of my life, and created much darkness in my life. They are my declared nemeses.

But I have to say that I have created more darkness in my life than computers and two-cycle engines and other people ever did. Just like each one of you, I could list twenty things I’ve done that darkened my life, things I wished I’d never done and things I didn't do that I wish I had done. They all kept me in darkness. Thankfully, about 20 years ago I saw a light in the darkness and went to seek the face in the darkness and it turned out to be Jesus Christ.

Our first scripture today speaks of an entire nation of people living in a land of deep darkness. Does this sound familiar? The land of Israel at both the time of Isaiah and the time of Jesus was in bad shape. Enemies from outside the country came and went as they pleased, taking and destroying, raping and pillaging as they wished. Israel’s army was no match for the invaders. In Isaiah's time the Assyrians had spread from their capital in Ninevah, across the river from modern Mosel, the same Mosel that is a stronghold of Isis, to destroy first the armies of Damascus and then the army of the Northern Kingdom Israel. Then, they began to work on the army of Judah, based in Jerusalem. In Jesus' time, the apparent enemy was the Roman Empire.

Each of the twelve tribes of Israel – descendants of the man also known as Jacob - had been given a territory when the Israelites entered the Promised Land by a lottery supervised by Joshua. Naphtali, the sixth son of Israel had drawn land to the west and northwest of the Sea of Galilee, productive land, beautiful both for vineyards and tree fruits, but also with good access to the excellent fishery of the freshwater lake that was the Sea of Galilee. Zebulun had a territory southwest of Naphtali, in the wonderful head of the Jezreel Valley, a well-watered expanse north of Mr Carmel, which shadowed much of the land in the evening as the sun dipped behind this high mountain range, leaving the land in darkness. These tribes were very blessed with their land.

But long ago, at the end of the reign of King Ahab and the evil Queen Jezebel, God led Israel into a battle in the Jezreel Valley, in the very heart of Zebulun’s territory. There, they were defeated and killed, with Jezebel coming to a particularly bad end. You can find the story in 2nd Kings in the Old Testament. From that day, it was felt that there was something wrong with that part of the world, the same way that Americans feel about the retreat from Vietnam or the US Army feels about the Little Bighorn where General Custer lost his entire command. It was a humbling place, a dishonored place, a place tied up with a degree of shame.

Yet Isaiah had heard from God a great prophecy. Isaiah had heard from God that:

In the past He humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future He will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
when dividing the plunder.
For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.
For seven hundred years, Jews debated the meaning of this prophecy. For seven hundred years, Jews argued over various interpretations of this prediction. For seven hundred years Jews discussed and wondered and worried and hoped why there would be such great joy and they wondered who this great leader would be, and they prayed to live in the time when the light would come.

And in their song, in the Psalm, they heard David sing:

The Lord is my light and my salvation—
They heard David sing : “Seek his face!”
Your face, Lord, I will seek.

And so, some of the wise men and women sought God’s face. Some remembered that the Lord is the light and salvation, and they waited. And they waited. And they waited...

Like people waiting for the second coming, some of the Jews waited on the Lord.

But, like people waiting for the second coming, most of the Jews spent their days worrying about their crops, their loves, their farms, their money, the precise interpretation of their Law, the decorations of their Temple, their horses, their politics, their cattle, their sheep, their clothing, their health. In other words, they were just like us, except that we’ve added sports to the list of things to worry about.

Few of the Jews were ready for the light when the light arrived in their darkness. They were too busy looking at themselves to be looking out into the darkness looking for a light to guide them out of that darkness.

John the Baptizer announced the Lamb of God had arrived. “Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!” John announced, pointing to Jesus of Nazareth and a couple of young men followed Jesus home that afternoon. Later, Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days to wrestle with the devil, to deal with temptation, to seek out God, to settle in His mind who He was. Then, when John was arrested by King Herod, Jesus went to Capernaum, a town in the heart of the ancient land of Naphtali, on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, and it was there he began his ministry. In that town, far from the reach of Herod, He began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

And it was there, that Jesus called upon Peter and Andrew to follow him. Peter and Andrew were brothers, fishermen with a boat on the lake, and they had met Jesus when John the Baptized had pointed Him out by the Jordan River. Jesus told them to follow Him, not as servants, not as paparazzi, but to become His students, to be taught the Way of God, the Way of Holiness, to find out the secrets this man who might be the great Messiah savior had brought.

And then a little later, Jesus met up with a young man named John – another fisherman He had met that afternoon with Andrew who had been following John the Baptist – and this young man John’s brother, James. And He asked them to follow Him and they did, and now there were five of them – a teacher and four students seeking the face of God.

Little did those students realize at that time that God was walking with them!

Did you notice that these men simply stopped work and followed Jesus when He showed up. They didn’t hem and haw, they didn’t check their schedules, they didn’t put Him off a week or a month to get their affairs in order. They simply followed Jesus.

It has often puzzled people why Jesus chose these four young men to be his first disciples. They aren’t very remarkable men, four professional fishermen who went out on the Sea of Galilee six nights out of seven, throwing nets into the lake and then pulling those heavy nets out of the water to catch some fish, which they would eat or sell. These men were not very well educated, they were not sophisticated, they were not leaders of tribes or clans, they were good ole’ boys.

But they had shown something a bit unusual for the time.

Of the four, at least Andrew, John, and Peter had traveled to hear John the Baptist and become followers of John. They had demonstrated that they wanted to learn about God’s will, they had walked many miles to do this, and they had believed John when John said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
These four, or at least these three, had shown that they wanted to seek the face of God.

And they found God’s face. At the critical times of the ministry, it was these three who were invited up to the top of Mr Hermon with Jesus for the Transfiguration. John was leaning against Jesus during the Last Supper. It was Peter who pulled a knife to defend Jesus, and it was Peter and John who walked with Jesus on the shore after the Resurrection. Andrew brought Greeks to meet Jesus on the day Jesus announced that the Gospel would also go to the Gentiles. These three or four men were the inner circle for one reason: They wanted to seek the face of God.

And after Jesus had gone back to Heaven, these men (along with the latecomer Paul) became the most influential members of the early church. John wrote a Gospel, three letters, and Revelation. He also became the Bishop in Ephesus, soon to be the major Christian city in Western Turkey. Peter wrote two letters, is said to have founded churches in Babylon and in Rome, and is a major figure in the Book of Acts. Andrew is said to have preached along the Black Sea coast into Romania and Ukraine, founding churches as he went. James was a major leader of the early church, likely wrote the Book of James, and was martyred by Herod.

Throughout history, certain men and women have become known as special people, as saints, as people who were particularly blessed by God. I’ve read their stories – and the thing that made them different was not that they were particularly well educated, nor that they were blessed by strong families. They didn’t have special sponsors or pastors. They weren’t particularly smart or good looking - some of them were downright ugly in appearance. Some began young while others began their ministries at an advanced age.

But they had one thing in common – their priorities in life.

Where many people make seeking God an important thing in their lives and fewer make seeking God’s face the most important thing in their lives, these remarkable people simply said, “Seeking God’s face and doing God’s will is the only priority in my life!” for this is the only way to make an eternal difference.

What about you?

Do you want to seek the face of God?

How important in your life is Christ? How important in the scheme of things is coming closer to God? We all have many things to do, but I’d like to ask you this question:

What do you think would happen if even half of those people who declare themselves to be Christians began to truly spend Sunday in search of God’s face and doing His will?

Oh, I know that you come to church, most of you rarely miss. By the standards of the world, you are committed Christians.

But what do you do when you leave church? Do you go home and take a nap, watch a football game, catch up on some work?

Or do you read a few chapters of your Bible, talk about God with friends, spend time trying to help a neighbor come to Christ? Do you engage the waitress at the restaurant, get to know her as a person and not as a serving robot, learn what she needs and help her out the next Sunday?

Do you teach your children Bible stories, do you paint Bible scenes, do you read a book or listen to a CD about some great Christian saint? Do you even stay for Sunday school?

Can you imagine what would happen if half of the Church, just half, began to really, truly take God as far as the early disciples did? 

The light is shining in the darkness of this world, is there anyone who will go to the light? Who is ready to commit their lives to truly becoming strong in the Lord, to being filled with the Holy Spirit, to walking boldly toward the light and saying “Lord, show me your face, for this world needs you!” Are you willing to follow God wherever He leads you?

But, pastor, you can’t expect that of us! We’re ordinary people – they were great men and women! After all, Peter and John and Andrew and James were special, they were highly trained….fishermen, ordinary men who chose to seek the face of God. And so they found Him.

Over the next thirty years, with God’s help, those men changed the world. You can too. There is darkness in our land today. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but few realize that with God’s help they can do it themselves. Fewer still realize that it is only through God's help that the world can be changed, that light can shine in the darkness.

Will you be one of those who seek the face of God and change the world?

If so, I’ll be here at 6:30 Sunday evenings to lead a group which will run until Easter. This group will not deal with basics, but will be a group focused upon becoming Spirit-led, world-changing Christian leaders. This is like no other group you’ve ever been involved in, because we aren’t going to worry about theology and names and places, but we are going to do what we need to become Holy and change the world with God’s help. See you at 6:30 pm at Quiet Dell United Methodist Church, I-79 at Exit 115 southeast of Clarksburg, WV. It doesn't matter which church you belong to. The only requirement is that you truly want to seek God's face and will. 

A Few Thoughts on Inauguration Day

As I sit here, the chimes from my church are playing "O Little Town of Bethlehem". Yes, even on January 20th, we are still playing Christmas songs to our community. And perhaps that is what I need to say to you on this day when we celebrate the secular power of the American government - that even today, Christ reigns more in our lives than does an admittedly powerful government. Our relationship with Christ is far more important to our daily lives and eternal destiny than is our relationship with our government - especially our tenuous relationship with our leaders in Washington.

Some members of my congregation are overjoyed on this day. They have felt like the Jews felt coming out of Egypt, that they have dwelt for many years in slavery and now they are free. To you I say: Our government was designed to be difficult to change because the Founders understood that a fast-changing government is difficult to live under. Do not expect too much too quickly, for even in a government ruled by one party, it only takes the 3 Republican senators most disloyal to the leadership to stop any bill, or the single least loyal "conservative" justice to block implementation of a bill.

Some members of my congregation are deeply frightened this day. They expect that a new Kristalnacht will appear at any moment, the night when Hitler began his attack upon the Jews. They expect a dictatorship. To you I say: Our government was designed to be difficult to change because the Founders understood that a fast-changing government is difficult to live under. Do not expect too much too quickly, for even in a government ruled by one party, it only takes the 3 Republican senators most disloyal to the leadership to stop any bill, or the single least loyal "conservative" justice to block implementation of a bill.

Change will happen, but it will be gradual, incremental change, for there are many forces at work in Washington, D.C., all of whom have their own agendas. In many ways, it is as though we now have four political parties: Populist/Conservative Republicans, Middle-of-the-Road Republicans, Liberal Democrats, and a few Middle-of-the-Road Democrats. Every one of those people in Congress already knows exactly how the people in their districts back home voted, whether for Trump, for Clinton, for Sanders, for Cruz, for Kasich, for Rubio, for another candidate. They know how many people voted Green and how many voted Libertarian, and they are, in general, rather smart individuals. They know who contributes to their campaigns and who doesn't. And so, like any man or woman who works for a living, they know who they need to keep happy - and who they doesn't matter. And so, they will do what they have done for many years - they will vote the party line on some things, and against their party on other things. They will make changes to bills in committee meetings, through staffers, through negotiations at dinner parties, and in the end, some good changes will come out of it - but extreme changes will not happen quickly, for the system is not designed to allow rapid change except when everyone is shocked to action, as when Pearl Harbor was bombed and a divided government declared war and made the necessary appropriations within a week.

And behind this all are the directions given to us by God through the Apostle Paul's writing in Romans Chapter 13:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

And also in I Timothy Chapter 2: 

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 

While it may be proper and a matter of conscience to protest an injust law or an act of injustice, it is not proper to protest against a man simply because you did not want him to be elected, no matter what his past conduct or words has been. For, as many historians have noted, the office changes the man. King David was a different man than David the shepherd. Wait until we see what laws and actions occur first. There will be plenty of time for protesting if that is needed. 

In the 1950's, there was a Senator named Joe McCarthy who held hearings about possible Communists in the American government and media. At first, these were serious inquiries about who might be trying to seriously act as foreign agents. With the celebrity that McCarthy received, however, the hearing degenerated into a circus where many innocent people or people who had long since walked away from their flirtations with Communism were encountering serious repercussions simply by being accused. 

Eventually a well-respected man, Edward R Murrow, a broadcaster and reporter who had previously observed and reported but stayed politically neutral, stood up and denounced McCarthy. Because Murrow had stayed neutral and had kept his reputation of being above politics, his denouncement influenced many people on both sides of the McCarthy issue and McCarthy's hearings fell apart. But if he had prematurely denounced McCarthy, if Murrow had previously been associated with one side or the other in the daily politics of the day, Murrow would not have had his moral power. 

This is how we are to be as the church. The more political issues we get involved in during the day-to-day slug-fest, the more likely it is that when we really have something important to say about something very important to many people, the less likely it is that anyone will listen to us. It is the man or woman who is above daily politics that makes the difference when he or she speaks.

So, Christian, watch, listen, and wait. Don't rush to support Mr. Trump, but don't rush to denounce him either. Wait until you get a solid sense of the tone of the administration, what is happening, what is important - and what is just smoke for the media. And then, after remaining quiet and being seen as wise, speak only if it will make a real difference to the people around you, those people who hopefully have seen in you the wisdom and patience and peace that Christ expects of a mature believer.

Behold the Lamb! - Where the Imagery of Christ as Lamb of God comes from

Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

About thirty years ago on a cold Thanksgiving Day, I was driving home to St. Marys, WV from Johnson City, TN where I lived and worked for Texas Instruments. For some reason I had to work fairly late on Wednesday, and so early Thanksgiving morning I got into my dark blue Nissan Pulsar and headed up I-81 to Wytheville. There, I filled up with gas at the TransAmerica Truckstop, which was about the only thing open that morning, and then headed north on I-77.

I was in a hurry. The trip was normally a six hour trip, but since there was little traffic on the road – and I knew the road well, I pushed it a bit, traveling 75 and 80 mph up the WV Turnpike.

I sped past the Capitol in Charleston and turned towards Parkersburg. And it was about ten miles north of Charleston that I became aware of a little blue light flickering in my rear-view window. I slowed down from the 79 mph I was traveling, and this WV State Police Cruiser came burning up the road and settled down right on my tail, so I slowed down and pulled over. The fine was $75 plus my insurance rates went up an extra $20 every six months for two years.

Throughout history, the punishment for many crimes, particularly the smaller crimes, has been the fine – a sacrifice of money or goods which goes to the enforcers – whether a government, a king, or, in the case of ancient Israel, to God’s Temple. Fines and sacrifices have long been preferred because they are the penalties that give second chances – other punishments such as slavery, the loss of life, or of a limb don’t really give you much of a second chance. Even jail time is considered a stronger punishment than a fine or sacrifice. And that is because you can never truly recover your time on this planet, while you can work harder, behave better, and recover your lost wealth after a fine or a sacrifice.

In ancient times, the preferred sacrifice was animal sacrifice for several reasons. First of all, cash or coin money was rare and more valuable, used primarily for travelers because it was easier to carry a gold coin than five head of cattle. Farmers – who represented over 90 percent of the population – rarely could save up enough to buy even one coin. In fact, by the time of the Roman empire, a single silver coin about the size and weight of our dime was worth a full day’s wages from an average laborer.

But livestock and grain – almost everyone had that. And so in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, in Numbers and Exodus there are various fines specified that must be paid when someone committed a crime against another person, against the community – or against God.

For small crimes, an offering of about 5 pounds of fine flour was the payment. For larger crimes, perhaps a couple of doves. But for more serious crimes, a lamb, a cow, or even a bull might be required. And even if you are a farmer today, the loss of your best bull – and the law of Moses stated that you always sacrificed the best you had – the loss of your best bull was felt.

Most punishments depended upon the wealth of the offender. Whereas a rich man might have to pay the bull, most people paid with a lamb and the poorest people paid with doves or even grain – in other words, a meal or two – which was enough to get your attention but rarely enough to break you for life.

And at the same time the Law of Moses came to the people of Israel, brought down from Mount Sinai from God by Moses, the people of Israel were just beginning to relax because they had escaped the Angel of Death who flew over Egypt a few months earlier and killed the firstborn of Egypt. The only reason the Israelites had been saved was because they believe what Moses told them, that they must take a lamb into their home for a few days, letting it become a member of the household, letting the children grow used to it, the entire family treating it as a pet, and then that night, they killed the lamb, ate the lamb, and put the blood on the doorposts of their homes and so the Angel of Death “passed over” their home, letting the firstborn live in that home because that home had decided that they believed in what God’s messenger, Moses, had told them, and they were able to escape the slavery of Egypt and cross over the water of the Red Sea to safety.

Can you imagine what the children said, how they cried, not fully understanding why their pet was killed? Can you imagine what impact it would have made on those firstborn as they grew old enough to understand the story and why that lamb had to be killed that night, that lamb with the pretty coat of wool that we had taken inside and played with and cuddled with and petted as it looked for food so trusting from us, who gave it death, how that lamb had been traded for our lives?

And so the idea of the sacrificial lamb became grilled into the minds of Israel. Everyone in Israel understood that lambs were there for wool, for eating, and to pay for penalties as sacrifices. And some of the prophets began to see visions of a lamb being sacrificed for sin, as well you might when you grew up on a farm, when you got to know every animal as an individual, when you took care of those lambs and protected them and fed some of them and named them, and then, when you did something wrong, you had to bring your favorite, your best, your most perfect lamb to Jerusalem and watch the priest cut the lamb’s neck and hear it squeal and see the lifeblood of that poor animal pour out on the altar. It was then that you realized that your sins do hurt others, that there is no such thing as a truly victimless crime, that what you do has life and death consequences, and so you resolved to be more careful, more holy, more obedient to God’s Laws. It is a heartfelt resolution no mere money fine can duplicate.

And then, one day, a wild prophet in the wilderness of Judea, down by the Jordan River, a man named John points to another man and says to his disciples, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

And if you were one of those disciples, you might ask Rabbi John just what he meant. Had John, the one who ate wild honey and locusts finally eaten something that had addled his mind? Had John, the man who made his own clothes out of camel hair, had the smell of the camels gotten to him? Or was it simply the heat and being alone so much?

But John the Baptizer had a solid reason for that outburst. John had not chosen to go into the wilderness and preach his baptism of repentance and sin removal on his own. He had been sent by God, who had spoken to John. And God had told John that ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’

Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”

And so, two of John’s disciples, Andrew and another man named John, went and followed Jesus and spent the evening talking to Him. And after that conversation, Andrew went to his brother Simon and brought Him to Jesus, where Jesus looked at this strong, muscular fisherman, and said, “You are Simon, son of John. Now you will be called “Rock””, which in Aramaic is “Cephas” and in Greek is "Petros", from which we get the name this man is remembered by: Peter.

And John the Baptist was right when he pointed out Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. For in just three short years, after the disciples had gotten to know and love this new teacher, after they had lived with Him and shared food with Him, eaten with Him and spent nights together on the road, after they had become dear friends, Jesus was sacrificed. His blood was shed and he died, and, like children, his disciples did little more than watch from a distance and cry bitter tears.

But if they had understood, if they had been older, if they knew what was going on – which they learned later – they would have known that this Lamb had to die, He had to be killed, His blood needed to be shed because this sacrifice did not keep the Angel of Death from passing over us, but destroyed Death itself. It was because of Jesus’ sacrificial death that we can live forever. It was because of Jesus’ death that we can escape, not from the slavery of Egypt, but from the slavery we bring with us each day, our slavery to our addictions and sins. It was because Jesus was the most perfect Lamb that God said that all who believe in this sacrifice and cross over through the water of baptism will be saved.

"Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!"

Will you believe in this sacrifice and the blood of Jesus that was shed? Will you be saved by believing and crossing over through the water of baptism?

Why We Baptize

Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17

As many of you know by now, I usually follow the lectionary, a three-year cycle of readings that cover the most important aspects of the New and the Old Testament. Today, I had a choice, a choice between the readings of Epiphany, which is the visit of the wise men from the East to the young Jesus, and the readings of the Baptism of the Lord. I chose to go with the Baptism readings, but we should note that both events and readings are united by faith – the faith the wise men had to follow the star hundreds of miles, the faith the wise men had to bow down and worship the young child – and the faith that Christians must show as they encounter Jesus and choose the sacrament of Baptism. Let’s go back in time for a while, back to a day long ago in the dry land of Palestine, back to a young man named Andrew who was a follower of a wild and crazy prophet, a man known to history as John the Baptist. Let's hear Andrew's tale...

…

It was another day down at the Jordan River. Our leader, the crazy holy man John – they called him John the Baptist – John was baptizing an endless succession of people who had come down from Jerusalem, down that long, long walk down the 3000 feet from the Mount of Olives, down past Jericho where Herod the foreign King, an Edomite, had his golden palace, and across the valley to the Jordan River.

We had followed him for several months. He told us to repent, to rethink our relationship with God, because the kingdom of heaven has come near. And then he baptized us to clean us of our sins, like the way a farmer washed his hands before a meal to clean the filth off. So many of us had forgotten God’s Law, we had forgotten things in the struggle to survive, we had forgotten that God had led us into this land – not Moses, not Aaron, but they had followed God and we had followed them so many years before. And just like many times before, we had turned away from God and because of that we had been conquered once again.

At first, we thought that John might be the Messiah, the savior of the Jewish nation. But he assured us that he was not the Messiah, yet here was this man acting and dressing like the prophets of hundreds of years ago, living on food that God brought him, dressing in clothes that he made himself, speaking in public the words that all the people wanted to say, all the people except those people who were in power in the land. He reminded us of Elijah, the great prophet that spoke to Ahab and Jezebel and destroyed the priesthood of Baal.

Oh, it was amazing the way he spoke – there was nothing subtle about John! One day some Sadducees and Pharisees came down from Jerusalem, dressed in their fine blue-and-white robes, wearing tassels that each took a woman a day or more to make. Each one of those men wore a robe that would take me three months to buy if I worked every day and saved all the money just for that piece of fine cloth. Can you imagine a single outfit of clothing costing three month’s of your wages?

Of course, they had made deals with the Romans and with Herod, they owned the land, they ran the Temple, they had come from good families whose grandfathers and fathers had bought up land when people couldn’t pay their taxes, the taxes that had built that gold-covered Temple. And us? My brother owned a fishing boat on the lake, and we spent long, hard hours six nights a week catching fish to sell to the Romans and whoever else would buy them. We worked hard, and we had saved up enough money to come and spend a year with this man, the eldest son of a Levite priest.

But earlier that day those Sadducess and Pharisees had come down to the river. It was so hot that day! Down in the valley it was extra hot as the blinding sun beat against the walls of the valley and those rocks bounced the heat down to us. The river’s humidity let green plants grow, it was true, but it made things feel hotter, we were sweating so much, the water was cool but not cold to the touch.

Flies buzzed around, the stink of people and animals and cooking fires bringing them all together here at the riverbank. A dozen of those flies came charging towards me. I moved to avoid the smell of a donkey that had decided to unload yesterday’s meal beside me, the pile that was attracting those flies. Oh, to live in a place without flies! It seemed like everything was rotten or decaying in our land.

John saw those blue-and-white robed men and he shouted, ““You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” – I told you John had a way of saying what we all wanted to say. “Brood of vipers!” Yes, they slithered down the road like the snakes they were. But John wasn’t finished with them:

“Did you come to repent? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” John was really on a roll today.

“Produce good fruit for God! The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fi-re.” And he said it that special way he always said it for emphasis – Fi-re” and you knew he meant that those priests and those people who split hairs over the Law were headed to hell fire even though they made all the sacrifices, they went to the Temple every week, they did their duty under the Law toward God but they ignored the suffering, despairing, dying people around them and, worse yet, they blamed the problems of the people who were suffering on those people and felt smug about their nice clothes, their beautiful Temple, and their ability to buy and sell dozens of animals when we could barely hope to have a milk cow.

But despite his loud, thundering voice, John was a humble man who knew his place in the world. His duty toward God was to tell the people of the coming Messiah: “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fi-re. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fi-re.”

And it was about that time that the stranger showed up.

A muscular man, about thirty years old, s bit on the tall side, he looked a bit like John, except where John was all crazy looking and loud, this man was calm and had a pleasant smile. And His eyes – they pierced you when He looked at you and you knew that He knew everything about you and yet even though He knew everything about you, He cared for you still, He wasn’t repulsed, He was waiting to help you. But that came later…

Today, this man walked down to the water. I was standing there close enough to hear John and Him talk. John must have known Him – I later found out they were cousins. The new man said, “John, please baptize me.”

John’s eyes opened wide and said, ““I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”

That got my attention! Who was this stranger? Who was this man that John claimed was holier than John, for that is the only conceivable thing that John could mean when he said, “I need to be baptized by you.”

The stranger looked at John with those eyes and said, “Nevertheless, we need to do this because righteousness demands it. It is the right thing to do.” And then John relented and baptized Jesus.

It was soon after that that Jesus chose me to follow Him and I left John behind, as well as the fishing boat. Over the next three years I came to know Jesus well, as did my brother Peter and the rest of the twelve. Jesus always did the right thing, never taking shortcuts, never turning aside from the path that He had set for Himself. And it always puzzled me why He had to be baptized...

…

People today also wonder about baptism. Why do we get baptized? Is one baptism better than another? What’s the deal here?

There are three basic positions on baptism today. There is the Reformed position which many - but not all - Baptists hold to, there is the simple church-joining position, and there is the third position which is held by Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians and thoughtful Catholics.

First, let’s look at the most common Baptist position, which is also held by many Reformed churches:

Their idea is that baptism is a public announcement of becoming a Christian – no more, no less. To a good Reformed Southern Baptist, there is nothing more to baptism than this public announcement. An easy thing to teach and remember. Yet, despite this idea that it is only a public announcement of a faith you already have, most Baptist groups have a tremendously detailed list of requirements – you must be baptized by immersion – some groups maintain you must be baptized in a river or creek – you must be a particular age - in some cases you must wear a white robe - and there is a belief that goes along with this that you can - and probably should be - baptized multiple times, with the “best” baptism being immersion occurring in the Jordan River, just like Jesus’ baptism.

Yet there is a fundamental contradiction here. If baptism is simply a public announcement, why the big deal over the details? Couldn’t we just take out an ad in the local newspaper – or make a posting on Facebook – “John Smith announces that he has become a Christian believer?”

At the other extreme, you have the simple church-joining position. The Amish, some Lutherans, and some Catholics take baptism to be your acceptance of God’s Laws as expressed by the church. Through baptism you join the church – a particular church. Once again, simple and easy to handle, easy to remember.

Yet there is a much richer, deeper purpose to baptism in mainline theology, the theology that includes thoughtful Catholics, Episcopals, Methodists, most Lutherans, and some other groups. Here’s how baptism works.:

When you believe and declare you are following Christ, you are now right with God. God’s wrath is gone from you. When you ask for God’s forgiveness, He truly forgives and forgets your sins. So far, so good. Through praying for forgiveness and declaring your belief in Jesus’ worthiness to God, you are now okay with God.

But there is a fundamental change that needs to be made in our souls if we are to remain in God’s good graces. We need to change our spirit. Will you all say, “Amen”?

John the Baptist told us that he baptized with water to remove our sins, "but there is one who is coming who will baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit." Let’s explore that a bit.

People are inherently lazy and uncomfortable with change. You know it and I know it. If I asked you to switch sides of the aisle today, it would be disturbing to almost all of you. I know. It was disturbing to me when a pastor once asked us to move at a church I attended.

Do you think God understands this? Of course God does.

A minute ago, I asked you all to say “Amen” and about half of you did. It is relatively easy, from the security of your pew, to say you believe in Jesus or, for that matter, almost anything. But if I ask you to get up out of your seats, to do something mildly uncomfortable, few of you will do it. How do I know this?

Last week, we had Holy Communion. I asked about ten people to help serve communion, and most of you turned me down, which is fine. Really. But why did you turn me down? Because it involves people watching you. It puts you in a position where you might make a mistake and you remember that day back in grade school when you were asked to read, made a mistake, and everyone in the classroom laughed at you. That fear makes us uncomfortable.

We don’t like being uncomfortable. And God knows this. So God asks us to get over our fears and get wet to prove we are really going to follow His Son when the going gets tough. For God may ask us to do something really uncomfortable someday. Christ had to do some very uncomfortable things, like hang on a cross until His death. Being Christians can lead to some uncomfortable things in our lives.

On Christmas at Monroe Chapel, we had two baptisms. I offered both people the chance to get immersed in the creek, have a pitcher of water poured over their head, or get sprinkled. And both chose sprinkling – a choice which has been around since the earliest days of the church. I can’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to get dunked in a freezing creek on Christmas Day…

Now when we get baptized, with the cleansing of our sins, God reaches into our heart and flips a metaphorical switch. And a minute later, I pray for the Holy Spirit to come upon you and now you have a new spirit, a spirit that wants to do good instead of that natural, rebellious spirit that you were born with, that spirit that wants to do everything your way and not God’s way. Where before you were saved from God’s wrath by your belief, now you have a chance to be saved from your own foolishness because now your spirit – the Holy Spirit – wants to lead you along the right path instead of the foolish, rebellious path. And so you will gradually see that now you can notice your sins and get free from them with the prayerful help of God, where before you were blind and enslaved to your sins. And since the change in your heart only happens once and the Spirit comes into you only once, then you never need to be baptized a second time, for it is not about what you or your pastor knew or saw or felt, but baptism is about what God did for you and your eternal soul, and surely God could not make a mistake!

And its worth noting that wherever the leaders of the early church traveled, they told the story of Christ’s Resurrection, they baptized people with water, and they laid on hands to give the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is even a couple of stories in Acts of believers earlier receiving baptism without the laying on of hands, and the apostles then lay on hands to these believers to complete the job, for they considered the transfer of the Holy Spirit to be of supreme importance. The writer of Hebrews considered it to be an "elementary teaching" of the faith (Heb 6:1-2). When I’ve laid hands on people, many of them have reported feeling strangely warmed, just as John Wesley reported being "strangely warmed" the night hundreds of years ago when he first understood that Christ’s salvation is truly a gift of God, without price. We have heard of the fire that came to the believers with the Holy Spirit during Pentecost. Is this warming the fire of the Spirit moving into a new person? I can’t say for sure, but a deep change happens when someone receives the water and the Spirit, a deep change that goes beyond the joy that happens when we first believe and choose to follow Jesus.

The earliest known meaning of the Greek word baptizo that we translate as baptize meant what happens when a cucumber becomes a pickle. It is baptized – there is a change of something essential in the cucumber. Later on, the word took on the meaning of dyeing cloth, changing its color, which you could do by putting the cloth in the dye - or by pouring or sprinkling the cloth with the dye. We even find in Mark 7:4 that the Pharisees ceremonially purified cups, pitchers, utensils and – according to some early Greek copies of the Gospel of Mark – even dining couches by baptizing them, which meant that those couches were sprinkled to purify them. And so, baptism creates an essential change inside of us and purifies us.

But why did Jesus, the sinless Son of God, need to be baptized? He was already pure.

There were ultimately two reasons. The first was that it showed humbleness to do something uncomfortable for God’s sake. Jesus said that it was “to fulfill all righteousness”. It was simply the right thing to do, it was how things should be done, it was proper and even  - or perhaps especially - Jesus, Son of God that He was had to do the right thing.

And that leads to the second reason. Following Jesus is a matter of faith and sometimes things happen in our lives which lead us to develop our faith. As we get to know Him, we should develop a deeper, more mature and well-grounded faith. Simply put, having faith in Jesus means that we trust Him even when we don’t understand. Jesus said He needed to be baptized – we trust Him – so we can put this question off until we can ask Him in person: "Jesus, we know you had a good reason. Why did you have to be baptized?"
And, you know, there are three mysteries we don’t understand.

We don’t really understand death and how Jesus will bring us back to life after death. Yet, we trust that His promises and His power are so reliable that we have faith we shall be resurrected.

Secondly, we don’t really understand all the ins and outs of Holy Communion. We don’t understand just how deeply He meant it when He said that the bread is now His body and the wine or grape juice is now His blood. Yet, on a regular basis we eat and drink those elements and have faith that Holy Communion is a way to grow closer to Jesus.

And third, we don’t fully understand all the details of the relationship between Jesus, the living water which He said keeps us from every getting thirsty again, and baptism. We know that in some way water is tied up with our birth, the new birth, the crossing of the Red Sea, the crossing of the Jordan River, life and new life. Perhaps Jesus needed to be baptized to purify the water? We simply don’t understand it fully. But what we do understand is this: If we have faith in Jesus, we are to be baptized, especially since Jesus said that His baptism was necessary to fulfill all righteousness.
And so we all have to make a decision. In some cases, our parents had such strong faith that Christianity was the right choice that we were baptized at an early age, even as infants, and hopefully those parents raised us up to be Christian believers, declaring to the world ourselves that we were believers as we were confirmed as teenagers.

In other cases, we became adults, unbaptized, having to make that decision ourselves. You may still be in that condition, believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and worthy of being followed, but you haven’t yet stepped forward and received the water of baptism yourself. Now is the time to make that decision.

The wise men who traveled from the East also did not know many things about the Babe of Bethlehem. Yet, they had faith, and so they bowed the knee when they found Him and they worshiped Him, not fully understanding, but fully having faith that worshiping this young child was the right thing to do. Will you do the right thing? Will you show your faith and be baptized?

The Day Bob found His Purpose

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13; Psalm 8; Revelation 21:1-6; Matthew 25:31-46

New Year’s Day is a time for changes. Even the ancient Romans recognized this, for they named January after their god Janus, who was the two-headed god of doorways, looking forward and backwards. Of course this meant he must have had a difficult time putting on his makeup...

Clearly I don’t believe in Janus, but I do recognize that New Year’s Day is a time for looking backwards and looking forwards.

It’s been a rough year. I wouldn’t call the last year a particularly Christian year, with all the terrible things that have been said on Facebook this year because people who used to be friends disagreed over who the President should be. It has been a year where many fine people have transferred to the Church of Heaven, and a year when many other people experienced an encounter with their final judge.

Looking forward, I have hope that things will improve, for in these churches we have seen tremendous growth in the depth, knowledge, and commitment to God among the people of these churches. Last Sunday, Christmas Day, Monroe Chapel had two baptisms and an incoming transfer. So I have hope in our future, particularly when we look forward to the sight one day of the New Heaven and the New Jerusalem coming down to earth, dressed as a bride for her bridegroom. Imagine the sight!

Monday evening, Saundra had a call at Ruby hospital to make, so I went along with her. We made the call and then stopped at Hobby Lobby because Saundra just loves that store with all the crafty items. When we left, the sun was just setting and a beautiful golden light reflected off the clouds in the west, lighting up the sky. I won’t call it yellow – it was golden on a background of a beautiful blue that can only be described as cerulean, which is actually a color you can look up on the Internet. I know this because Saundra told me.

As we watched, the oranges and reds and pinks began, along with a lavender purple around the edges. Yet always, glowing there in the middle was that golden glow, like God had melted down some heavenly pavement and poured it onto the clouds. It was quite a sight there, that evening after Christmas Day, a reminder of what God has in store for us one day, just as was written in Revelation.

And it reminds me of a story of a man who made some changes and had a new beginning one day. ..

Once upon a time, a few years ago, there was a man who had grown up in a small West Virginia town and moved to a larger southern city. He was lonely, very lonely, but the reason he was lonely was because he kept to himself and, if the truth be known, he was just a bit of a perfectionist in his choice of friends – including girlfriends. He wasn’t married, wasn’t even dating right now because he had high standards – the girl he married would be perfect! So he went to work and he drove home each evening and spent the evenings watching television alone wondering who would be the last survivor on the island.

But he had grown up in the church and so when he moved to this large city, he went to visit a church one Sunday morning. The worship leader greeted everyone, a prayer was made, some hymns were sung, and the choir sang. The visitor noticed that there were some voices in the choir that were on the wrong notes, so after the service, he decided, “I want good singing in my church, so I’ll go find a different church.”

The next church he went to had a contemporary service with a really good praise band with professional quality singers. As he listened to the praise band play, he grew bored when the second song repeated the chorus about seven times. So after the service, he decided, “I hate boring songs, so I’ll go find a different church.”

Over the next few months, the man visited a dozen or more churches. But the temperature at the church was too cold or too hot, the pastor was too intellectual or not deep enough with his sermons, the people were too aggressively friendly or they were too distant, the church seemed too liberal or too fundamentalist, the people who attended were too rich and snooty or too poor for him to associate with, or the church was too big to make friends or too small to stay anonymous in. He just couldn’t seem to find the right church in that town of 2 million people.

It was about this time that he ran into a neighbor in his apartment building. And that was when things changed.

The neighbor woman was devoted to God. She was in her seventies and had some health issues, but she had decided long ago that as long as her mind and her mouth could operate (and they both operated quite well!) she could work for God and spread the Gospel. But, she also knew that she could use some help spreading the Gospel to the people in the apartment complex. So when she saw this sad man driving out every Sunday morning at 9 am and coming home around 1 pm, she recognized that this man was going to church somewhere. So Emma planned things carefully, watching and figuring out when he came home from work, and one day, she prepared a bit of extra food.

She met him with her cane carefully carrying her laundry basket up the steps from the laundry room as he came home from work. She was indeed out of breath, so what she said wasn’t really a lie, “Young man, I’m having trouble getting my laundry up the stairs today. Could you help me?”

The man, having been raised in church, couldn’t refuse an old woman. So he put his toolbox carefully on the box of detergent in the laundry basket and carried them both up two flights of stairs to her apartment.

As they neared her door, she said, “Hi, I’m Emma. What’s your name?”

The man introduced himself as Bob as Emma opened the door and the wonderful aroma of fried chicken filled the hallway. Emma then asked, rather boldly, “Bob, you’re a nice guy. Where do you go to church?”

She had found that question was a great way to lead to a discussion of the Gospel.

Bob stammered a bit about his difficulty in finding the right church. Emma invited him in for some fried chicken and mashed potatoes, which she just “happened” to have extra of that evening. After the usual excuses, which Emma did not let him get away with, Bob had dinner with her, because, after all, he was lonely and that fried chicken smelled wonderful!

As they talked, the story of Bob’s search for the perfect church came out. And Bob told Emma much of his life’s story. Eventually, she told him, as a woman who had raised three children can, that his problem was not the in the churches he had found, but in his ideas about what the purpose of church was.

“But I thought the purpose of church was to learn lessons about God and how to live a godly life.”

“Young man, that’s only part of the truth. You already know that Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Are you baptized?” Emma liked to make sure all her acquaintances had crossed their "t's" and dotted their "i's" with God.

“Yes. I was baptized when I was young and then confirmed.”

“Then Bob, you have apparently missed a key part of the Gospel message, because you sound like all you’ve ever done in church is sit there listening to choirs sing and pastors preach!”

“Isn’t that what church is all about?”

“It may be that way where you come from, Bob, but it isn’t that way here.”

“Why? What do you mean?” Bob wanted to understand better.

“If you really understand what Christ has done for you – rescued your eternal soul from hell fire and damnation – you’d show a bit more attitude of gratitude. When you understand that God gave you a free ticket to New Jerusalem, you’d start to look outside and see other people who don't have that ticket. Tell me, Bob, are you a sheep or are you a goat?”

“A sheep or a goat? What are you talking about?”

“In Matthew 25, Jesus is talking to his disciples – the men who are already following Him. Notice that these guys already are part of his flock! He talks about how at the end of God will separate people into sheep and into goats. Sheep stick together in flocks, they help each other, they work together. Goats go off by themselves, leaving each other alone.

“Jesus says that the way God will tell whether you are a sheep or a goat is whether or not each person did something for other people. Jesus takes it really personally whether or not we treat each other like the images of God, the special, unique valuable portraits of God that we each are. Jesus even says that when we give someone food, we are giving food to Him, when we give someone a drink, we are giving water to Him, when we invite in strangers, we are inviting Jesus in, when we give someone clothes, we are giving Him clothes, when we nurse sick people, we are nursing Jesus, when we visit someone in prison, we are visiting Jesus. Those who do these things are sheep and will inherit a place in New Jerusalem.

“But when we don’t do these things, we are goats, off by ourselves, ignoring Jesus. And He’ll send the goats to eternal punishment," Emma paused for breath.

“Bob, a church is not Sunday morning entertainment. It is a group of people who are changing the world and helping people avoid hell fire. If all you are doing is sitting on a pew, all you are doing is warming the air in the sanctuary, and they already have a furnace for that!”

Bob thought a moment and he felt offended and upset. He fired back at Emma, “But what do you do? You don’t go to the church often during the week. At least, I haven’t seen you go there. You're here almost every night!”

“No, I don’t go, Bob. I once was just like you, though. I thought that the work of the church was pretty limited. You’ve got the preacher, the worship leader, the choir director, some choir member, the organist, the praise band members, the ushers, a custodian, some Sunday School teachers.

“My health issues mean I’m able to go to Sunday services, but I’m not much for dancing around and singing in the choir with this cane, and otherwise I’m pretty limited in how much I can get out. But once a month, a friend of mine takes me to another woman’s home – Betty has a nice home and she likes to entertain – and I teach an hour long Bible study to the women who are there. It’s actually very simple – they think I’m such a great teacher! All I do is read a chapter from a book in the New Testament and ask everyone what they think about the chapter and get them to discuss it. Oh, I plan ahead and have three or four points I want to make about the chapter, three or four questions to ask to get discussions going.”

She lowered her voice, almost whispering as she leaned forward, “When I’m stuck, I go onto the Internet and look for what other people have written about the chapter.” She straightened back up. “Bob, Betty and I started with just us and two other women. Now two dozen women come every month. And after the lesson, we make items that the food pantry gives to people in need. That's how I change the world!”

“But that’s not in the church!” Bob was confused.

“So-o-o-o what?” Emma replied. “We pray, we read scripture, we discuss it, we pray again. God is glorified, Christ is glorified, people become more godly, and the world is changed for the better.

“In our church, there are some men who repair 20-year-old junker cars so they’ll run and the Salvation Army gives them to people who need a car for work. Another group of people collect old crutches, wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, C-Paps, and similar medical equipment to give to other people who need them.”

Emma stood up to clear the dishes, leaning on her cane. “There’s even two men who are really old who drive a shuttle car from downtown to the telemarketing center so some young people can get to work. They don’t charge a dime for the first three months, then a dollar a day after that. “

“Bob, you know that Ecclesiastes says that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. So stop searching for the perfect church and start making a church better. Your time has come to start showing that you want to be a sheep and not a goat. ”

And you know, Bob only visited one more church – Emma’s church. He wasn’t too comfortable with all the “amen’s” during the service at first, but he grew to like it so much he was married in that church to one of the women he led to Christ. That happened when his puppet ministry performed at the home for unwed mothers just two years later. And he was never lonely or sad again, for he was too busy leading children and their parents to Christ with those puppets. 

And he learned to ask each of his Christian friends...."Are you a sheep, or are you a goat?" What about you?