Jonah (the adult version)
I preached yesterday at Southwestern College Chapel on the book of Jonah. It amazes me the way we treat the Bible sometimes. The book of Jonah is a fictional tale packed full of truth, yet when we make it into a children’s story we rob it of the multiple messages it has for us. It isn’t fair to adults or children! So instead I am hoping to bring it into full light. Below is a excerpt of the sermon. And the slide show that went with it!
First view this presentation. Then read the sermon below.
September 23, 2010 3 Comments
Sermons Online…Coming Soon
After two weeks without my computer I realized a couple things. First, without my computer I am a sad man. Second, without my computer our blog is a sad blog. But now it is back and my once frantic screen looks crisp and able to open and close with out freaking out. The first thing I did when I got my computer back was start reading the hundreds of blogs which I have missed out on. One of my favorite sources is Church Marketing Sucks. This site has the greatest advice about marketing, promotion, and communication for churches that are willing to get over a slight profanity in the name. [Read more →]
February 2, 2010 1 Comment
Filled with Expectation
Luke 3:15-16
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with* the Holy Spirit and fire.
Whenever we go home to Kansas my wife and I stay at my parents house and usually my older sister and her family come and join us. She is married and has three children. The oldest, Grace, is 5 years old. When we are in Kansas Grace serves as the activity planner. She is like the event coordinator on a cruise ship. She always has an idea about the next thing we should do.
Last time we were home Grace decided we were going to play a game called, “So You Think You Can Dance.” This game is modeled after the tv show with the same name. If you haven’t seen the show it is similar to other talent shows like American Idol, only with dancing. The contestants come out, there is a host and judges. The judges give critique about the performances and then the audience votes via text messages until a winner is finally decided.
There is one judge that Grace especially loves. This judge has an interesting approach to her job and comes with a ton of energy. When she sees a dancer perform well she responds with her now famous catch phrase, “Your on the HOT TAMALE TRAIN!” Quite frankly, I think she is nuts. I don’t know what the hot tamale train is, what station it leaves from, or what they serve in the dining car; but Grace LOVES the hot tamale train and can think of nothing better than to be on it.
Grace assigned everyone parts in the game and would come out and dance her heart out. And every time she finished she would look to her mother, who was her favorite judge, and be filled with expectation. Because Grace knew that her mother would say, “Grace, you are on the hot tamale train!”
Don’t get me wrong this was really cute, but after about the 20th round of the game the rest of us grew pretty bored with it. A five year old really only has one arm flaying dance. But no matter how bored everyone else was, Grace was still filled with expectation. Every dance she turned to her mother and expected to hear that she was on the hot tamale train. Because of her mother’s love and UNDYING patience Grace was filled with great expectation
This expectation is what the advent season is all about, however, it isn’t the commercialized baby Jesus that we often see. Instead it is Christ’s second coming that we are called to expect at advent. It is the coming Kingdom of God where God comes in final victory and reigns with peace and reconciliation. This far off, glorious kingdom, is what we are to be filled with expectation about.
Advent is about placing us in the story. First, there was a prophecy of a messiah, then Jesus came, died, rose again, and ascended in to heaven, and now the Church enters the picture. The Church, you and me, must carry the hope of the coming kingdom until Christ comes again. We must prepare the current world for the world as it will be when Christ comes again. We live in a way that builds expectation. This is the message of the Advent season.
When Advent is lived in this way it pulls people outside their current reality and points them, directs them, to a new possible reality. The ministry of John the Baptist as found in the scripture text does just this. I love John the Baptist, but I have to be honest he also makes me nervous. The thing is, John the Baptist was one of the first Preachers Kids or PK’s and he set the stereotype. Dude was out there. He had a radical ministry and drew in some crazy crowds. And in his devotion and dedication to prophesy of a messiah he raised up expectation in the people around him. But John knew his place in the story. He knew that it was his job not to be the messiah but to prepare the way for the messiah. He filled the people with expectation for one who was coming that he wasn’t worthy to untie his sandals, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and Fire.
We see people like John the Baptist in our own lives; people who fill us with expectation because of the faithful content of their lives. The difference is that people now are not directing us the messiah’s first appearance but his second. The lives of faithful people give us glimpses into the coming Kingdom of God. In the compassion of Mother Teresa we see an image of Christ’s return, in the reconciliation of Martin Luther King Jr. we see a piece of the Kingdom that will come. The God given characteristics of these faithful people give us an image of what the kingdom will be. Not only are these heroes of the faith windows to Christ’s return the personal relationships we have with our friends, family, and acquaintances all can show us what the world will be like. I see it in the passion of my wife and the way she always works for justice and relationship. These people embody the season of Advent because their faithfulness causes us to expect how the Kingdom will be when Christ comes again.
So it begs the question. If the Church is the embodied hope of Christ return, what should people expect? Should they expect unfailing love, generosity, and compassion? Should they expect justice, peace, and righteousness? Should they expect love as God loves us, love for neighbor and self? My niece looked to her mother with great expectation because in her mother’s patience and devotion she saw characteristics of God’s kingdom. The people looked at JTB with great expectation because in his dedication to reconciliation and courageous proclamation they saw a peek of the Kingdom of God. When the people in your lives see you, when your loved ones, your friends, your acquaintances and your enemies look at you are they filled with expectation? God has placed in each of us glimpses of the kingdom to come, may we live into them, may we claim them, and may we become them for the world.
This is a sermon I prepared for this Sunday, the third week of Advent. If you are a church member at MGCC I must warn you reading this will ruin the surprise on Sunday morning!
Luke 3:15-16
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire…. [Read more →]
December 9, 2009 6 Comments
Privilege and Revelation
The Revelation of John is written to a place in history where believers were being persecuted and suffering was all around. It is assumed that the writer of this text is performing a very important pastoral duty orientating the persecuted and suffering people toward the hope of Jesus Christ. And I imagine that part of the hope was that God’s triumph would come in the form retributive justice; holding the oppressors responsible for their actions. What makes this interesting for me, is that, if I draw the meaning of this scripture, in the framework of our own context, than more often than not, I would be the oppressor. I am a person of privilege. I am white, I am male, I am heterosexual, I am able bodied, able-mind, and have generations of financial stability to lean on. The social structure of my time floods my door with more resources than I can use, and no matter how bad I feel about my privilege, no matter how much I try to transcend it, the system isn’t going to stop benefiting me for reasons that I am not responsible for. I bring my privilege to this scripture, and the message I hear is a call for reorientation, a call for willing priestly servants.
The Revelation of John reminds us to be orientated towards God, even amidst suffering, even if we have caused the suffering. For the oppressors, this orientation causes us to recognize a new king, who transcends privilege by offering freedom from sin to ALL people. And out of that unity God calls us to service in creating a new kingdom. God has prepared this kingdom for all believers, and with it comes both the joy and the responsibility of serving as God’s priests. In these acts God does that incredible thing of reconciliation. Bringing privileged and oppressed to the same table and offering us communion with each other and with God’s self.
This type of reorientation takes more than a lifetime to perfect, and often is slow work done through the soft movement of the Spirit. But there are times when the brokenness and persecution of our society is clear, and the opportunity for orientation is abundantly available. I recently experienced a situation like this on the rails of Chicago’s public transit, where all things are possible. A friend, my wife, and I entered a train on the way home from a dinner party, and it was clear that something was up. We, unfortunately, timed our travel with the end of a Cubs game and the cars were packed with fans; some were drunk, and most were restless due to another disappointing Cubs season. The crowded car was made more volatile by a woman who was screaming obscenities into her cell phone. The people in the trained egged her on, and yelled out their own foul language adding to the tension. Soon it was clear the woman wasn’t really on her phone; she was screaming, swearing, and arguing with people who were only present in her own mind. While I am not a doctor, I assume she was having something similar to a schizophrenic break. Even though it was becoming clear that the woman was dealing with mental illness; the crowd mentality was set, and the behavior of the people around us grew worse.
We were amidst the persecution just as the churches in Revelation. And although we were not saying anything derogatory to the woman; our privilege anchored us with the side of the persecutors. We felt bad for her, I felt the familiar guilt which comes from privilege, and I wanted for it to stop; but no matter how much I sympathized; she was the oppressed and I was not. She was searching for hope, searching to make it out of this ill-deserved persecution; while my hope was secure, because I had the ability to blend in, to get off at my stop, and to go about my way.
The crowd continued to mock her, and seemed in agreement that her new name was crazy “lady”, and by “lady” I mean the offensive swear word of your choice. And as her suffering grew the potential for reorientation became powerfully clear. As an oppressor I could have used my privilege to call my peers under a new kingship. Under Christ’s kingdom we could not deny the humanness or this woman’s suffering. We could have joined together, and helped her receive the medical attention she needed. Once healthy we could have brought her out of the isolation she experienced as the oppressed and dealt with our own ignorance and guardedness; which kept us from seeing her as one of the beloved. We could have joined in priestly service, but we passed it up. We needed reorientation.
Later that evening my wife looked at me and asked, “Where was Christ on that train?” If I take the text from Revelation seriously, it seems that Christ was in the suffering of the woman. No doubt the Spirit was also desperate to take form in a priestly servant, but no one was willing. Many of us on the train probably wished it had gone differently, because we all left isolated. But hopefully the lesson was learned, at least by me, and in the next moment when reorientation is knocking at my door, I pray that I will work to fulfill God’s kingdom by becoming a priestly servant. By bringing about justice and reconciliation through Jesus Christ, whose faithful witness and love for us frees us from our sins, AND gives us another chance. Because of my privilege, I am often going to find myself on the side of the persecutor, but my hope is that I will become a willing servant and with the power of Christ a new kingdom will take form. May it be so in my heart and may it be so in yours.
This is a sermon that I used in class. To much going on to write a real blog post, but I think you’ll like this. Let me know what you think.
The scripture is Revelation 1:5-6
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
November 18, 2009 4 Comments