Day 47 - The Sexual Nature of the Church

This is actually yesterday's  (Thursday) post.

In day 36, "Val" posted a comment quoting various parts of the Revelation according to John that claims that the church is a woman (see Revelation 12 ) although Val may object to my reading since this is the NRSV translation not the KJV translation.

I will ignore the fact that the KJV is an English translation of original and secondary language sources and the translation reflects in many places a poorly rendered translation of Greek and Hebrew.  What I mean to say is the KJV is a novel and useful translation that reveals quite erroneous rendition of certain Greek descriptions of the Biblical circumstances when good Greek and Hebrew scholarship is applied.

Val also seems not to appreciate how the symbolic and metaphoric language interplays with the literal.

This passage (Rev 12)  describes a woman giving birth to a son who was snatched away and taken to God. While Val suggests this passage indicates the "church" gave birth (a symbolic interpretation); it is a more reasonable reading to conclude the woman is a personification of Israel, especially if we read Isaiah 62 where Israel is personified as a woman taken as God's bride.

Thus it is more reasonable to conclude that the passage in question refers to Israel from whom Christ is born (literally, he was a Jew). Of course this does require a figurative reading of both citations, something our more conservative friends might be loathe to do. Nevertheless, Val seems to be making a point about the prominence of women in our religious history and future. I would whole-heartedly agree that  women are an essential focus or part of the Church in both ministry, teaching and pastoral care, but Val seems to be confusing a symbolic analogy of the relationship of the Church to God as a man to a woman, with a literal one.

I would think that any of us who experience  a deep, loving relationship with a spouse would  appreciate this powerfully exquisite metaphor of the relationship of God to humanity.

Day 43 - Unrequited Love and Superabundant Blessings

Sermon of January 20, 2013 at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy-Daisy Tennessee, based on  John 2:1-11 and Hebrew scriptures of the Revised Common Lectionary published at textweek.

The hour is here for Jesus to come to earth. For the last two Sundays, I have asked, "Why did Jesus come to earth?" The fact that I’ve talked about it, now for three Sundays and will finish next week to make four means the answer has many forms. What we are searching for is the answer that best captures the magnitude and force of his coming. 

Today, we heard Isaiah's prophecy that the Messiah will come to earth as an overabundant blessing of excess grace because the Lord delights in humanity, his creation

Even though our spiritual poverty has made him an unrequited lover, God rejoices with steadfast love of us as a groom over his bride. His walk to the cross is an act of requited love.  It is the only thing that can heal our spiritual poverty.

Today, we heard Isaiah’ prophecy that the Messiah will come to earth as an overabundant blessing of excess grace because the Lord delights in humanity, his creation.  Even though our spiritual poverty has made him an unrequited lover, God rejoices with steadfast love of us as a groom over his bride. His walk to the cross is an act of requited love. It is the only thing that can heal our spiritual poverty.

In the Gospel of John we hear of the adult Jesus who stands at the hour that his journey to the cross begins in earnest.  

As we talk about John’s words, I want to ask you to participate with me and play with your imagination. Imagine that you are in Jesus’ human mind; and if you can, look at the world the way he may have. It seems to me we cannot fully understand the magnitude of Jesus coming to earth unless we also understand his human nature.

We can’t do this with great fidelity because at the same time he is living in the world as a fellow human, Jesus knows he is not just a man but also the Son of God.  He knows his future; he sees that cross standing out there...waiting. 

What was he thinking at this wedding? Are you ready to acknowledge that his time had come to start your journey? He must have perceived and feared all the day-to-day threats and events as we would. Being human in your early thirties, you know it is time to get on with your life. You feel the necessity to embark on your vocation but you have this extra bit of divine knowledge that to do so requires you to embrace an impeding death that will cut your days short. He must have struggled in emotional turmoil knowing this misery of his upcoming human sacrifice is necessary for his life with us to make any sense at all.

He must have dreaded it, he told his mother his time had not come. Maybe your hands are sweaty, maybe you are racked with great anguish over that cross standing in your future. You know you are at the threshold of your ministry and you know that first step is going to be like one of those Indian fish traps, your time has come and once you are there, there is no turning back.

Your mother is standing there beside you here at this wedding celebration, just as you know she shall stand on a hill alone with the other women while the men have already run for cover or denied you on that day when your time arrives.  You know even now before you begin your first step that you will fully and painfully understand the nature of unrequited love as you hang there abandoned on the cross at that hour.

I have imagined a story about unrequited love of a father to a son. Here it is. This fellow borrowed his Dad’s pickup truck, went to the quarry and loaded up the truck with so much crushed rock that he broke a spring. He drove the gravel home and backing in to his driveway where he wanted to dump it, he scraped the passenger side of the door on the chain link fence post at the driveway leaving a bad gouge in the door and a broken off side mirror.

He went ahead and shoveled out the gravel from the truck and then asked then his wife to follow him over to his Dad’s to drop off the truck because he was in a hurry to get back home and spread the gravel before it rained.

On the way over, he drove through the Krystal for a cup of coke and put it in the beverage holder on the dash out of the way in order to pull out into traffic. Unfortunately, he pulled out in front of someone and had to step on the gas to avoid an accident. The coke overturned leaving a wet sticky mess on the carpet and seat. Since he was in a hurry to get back home he didn’t stop and clean it up, he just zipped over to Dad’s and backed the truck onto the driveway but when he backed in he couldn’t see the side of the driveway because of the broken mirror and crushed a hundred year old, heirloom camellia his Dad had moved from his mother’s house about forty years ago right after she died. and got in the wife’s car and headed for home. He was in a hurry so he just got in his wife’s care and headed home to finish that driveway of his own.

About a month later he realized he needed more gravel and called his Dad to see if he could borrow the truck again.  The son did not think to apologize for the spring, the door, mirror and the camellia, maybe because he was in a hurry or took his Dad for granted, or just didn’t care, I don’t know.

This time he explained to his Dad his need to borrow the truck to get some more gravel. Dad said he needed to go to the store first but on the way back would stop by the house and drop the truck off for him and would walk the rest of the way home.  He never said a word about the damage to the truck.

This is the unrequited love of a father for a son.

With this idea in mind, let’s get back in the mind of human Jesus and imagine the wedding at Cana in a little more detail.

You have showed up at this wedding with no customary gifts or food because you are poor. Like the rest of your people, you live a forsaken life, suffering under the yoke of oppression and despair. Why?

Because) Your people have ignored you; those who have plenty ignore those of your creation who have with less. Even the poor among you abuse your love and forget your commandments. So you in your divine nature you imagine them wicked people and in your divine anger and impatience send alien nations to capture and enslave them. But you still love them. You recall Psalm 36:

¹Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in their hearts; there is no fear of God before their eyes.

²For they flatter themselves in their own eyes that their iniquity cannot be found out and hated.

³The words of their mouths are mischief and deceit; they have ceased to act wisely and (to) do good.

⁴They plot mischief while on their beds; they are set on a way that is not good; they do not reject evil.

⁵Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.

⁶Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O Lord.

⁷How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

⁸They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

⁹For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

¹⁰O continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your salvation to the upright of heart!

¹¹Do not let the foot of the arrogant tread on me, or the hand of the wicked drive me away.

¹²There the evildoers lie prostrate; they are thrust down, unable to rise.

[The words “steadfast love” come as close as it can to “unrequited love”]

Here you are at a celebration of a wedding party.  (Now as a grown man) You have called your faithful disciples to you, you know your time is near and maybe a human fear nags you, “Are you really ready for this?”  Maybe you need that glass of wine to calm your nerves, you are human you know.

You have brought at least 13 people and yourself to this wedding celebration but nothing else. Wedding celebrations can continue for a week. Friends and relatives come from everywhere and expect to rejoice and entertain and be fed. It takes a lot of food and beverages.

You think, boy weddings are special! They recall your promise in Isaiah 62 to Zion – Zion is the Hebrew word for a woman who laments her plight, now that woman has come to be Israel in her captivity.

Listen again to the powerful words of God from Isaiah:

"For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. ²The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. ³You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. ⁴You shall no more be named Forsaken, and your land shall no more be named Desolate; but you shall be called Hephzibah (My Delight Is in Her), and your land (shall be called) Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. ⁵As a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you."

You remember these magnificent and powerful words, you called your land “married” because you as Lord delight in them as a groom with his bride. And so with your mother’s prod to “do something,” she unwittingly and ironically begins your trek to the cross where a sword will pierce her heart as she watches her son die.

And so, you make wine out of 6-30 gallon jars of water. Not just any wine, but the best wine. Not just a little wine but about 600 bottles of the best wine. It is a superabundant wedding gift, and it is not a miracle. It is the first true sign of the superabundant blessing you are bringing to your wedding with humanity. With this creation you signal the beginning of the journey to the greatest human and divine celebration of marriage ever. The best wine shall be served last.

And perhaps being human you remind yourself and take solace in the fact that this is why you came to earth, this is the hour to begin the walk to the cross that shall set us free.  Amen.

Day 36 - Fire and Chaff

My sermon reading 1/13/13: Isaiah 43:1-7;  Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Last week I said the readings for worship since Advent provide hints or pieces of the answer to the question, “Why did Jesus come to earth?” Today we shall think about the baptism of Jesus in the light of that question. 

Did you ever wonder why Jesus the Son of God was baptized?

When you read these words of John the Baptist about gathering the grain and throwing the chaff into the fire, what do you think?  Your answer really depends a lot on your religious heritage. If you are of a more Pentecostal bent or come from a Baptist tradition like me, you may think of some of the old fire and brimstone preachers you heard challenging you to repent or risk burning in the fire of Hell.

Presbyterians, and for that matter all of the reformed faith, believe baptism is the sign of new birth, we have discarded the old clothes of death and put on the new clothes of life as begin a Christian life. Presbyterians might also say some of us are elected to receive that grace and others the fire of Hell. 

I’m not going to argue with John Calvin on predestination for at least two reasons, first I’m not presumptuous enough to know if you or I are elected or not; and second, like Paul I know that no matter how clearly I know the good thing to do, I will do what is bad.

Baptism is a sign of our redemption from that inescapable reality of sin. Our strength in Baptism opens the way for the Holy Spirit to come to us and seal our redemption.

Think about it like this. If I have the option to choose to be saved, then may be I don’t need Jesus, I can do it own my own. But if I accept the fact that I am a totally lost person and can do absolutely nothing to be saved; the freely given gift of God’s grace of salvation and redemption through Christ takes on very great power and meaning as an unmerited gift.

 The traditional way we describe this gift is to say God has reckoned us righteous in spite of our sin; he has justified us.  To reckon someone righteous means regardless of guilt, before there even is a trial God has dismissed the charges and said, “I make you righteous.” That is what he did to Abraham. When Abraham obeyed the Lord he was reckoned righteous for his faith alone.

That is quite a gift and obligation that I am not sure we can fully understand unless we find an answer to the question, “Why did Jesus come to earth?”

Sometimes we don’t really appreciate that Jesus came to earth as a complete human being. We think he is really God and God can do anything. God could have blessed us with the grace of salvation with no more than a willful thought or wave of the hand…

Why did God work in this way, come to earth in the complete form of a human and suffer our life of temptations, compassion, mean-spirited urges and death? Why did Jesus come to earth as a human? I suggest to you that it is tied up in God’s declaration, “It is very good.” In Genesis after all, when he created us he said it was very good.  That sounds really close to the words from heaven at Jesus’ baptism, “You are my Son with you I am well pleased.”

We can see the baptism of Jesus as a validation of that blessing at our original creation. Baptism is a sign of redemption for humankind accomplished by the ultimate human experience of the death by crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  It is a sign of our justification as one of God’s beloved children, the gift of grace of salvation.

Let me explain it this way. Paul’s remark about knowing what is right strikes at the heart of what baptism means. Baptism is more than a sign of redemption and justification of righteousness in the face of that sin. Being reckoned righteous is Jesus walking up to you and saying, “I just wrote your name in the book of life and now that I have reckoned you a compassionate, righteous person, go act like it.” Our obligation when we put on those new clothes - when we are reborn – is to seek something called sanctification.   That is what the great commission speaks to the disciples: 

Matt. 28:19-20 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NOTE: There are only 2 commandments – what are they?)

A Story about Justification and Sanctification

In my spare time, which I find very little of lately, I build furniture and work on our house. When I need to I can rewire an old circuit if it is simple or run a new one. I can repair the end of rotted roof rafters, install a gutter, rough in a doorframe or an interior wall or even build my own kitchen cabinetry.

I’m not bragging though because I would never call myself a carpenter or electrician, I’m only good enough to get in trouble. In fact every time I look at one of my pieces of furniture, I see an edge that should have run differently, or a less than perfect gaps on that cabinet door. I see my mistakes that most folks don’t ever see.

I picked up these skills over the years. I lived in Pittsburgh thirty or so years ago while I was working as a metallurgist for Alcoa. I bought my first house, a wood-framed two-story structure about a hundred years old. It was framed out of 2x4 hemlock two stories tall. If you know anything about old houses, you know I bought a project. That is where I started practicing on rotten roof rafters, roofing and tile work. Like many of you who a lot better at it than I am, when something needs to be done, I just go out and do it.

I hadn’t thought a lot about that old house until this past December. My oldest son who I love dearly is a “starving artist-type.”  That means under-employed, but finally he has found a way to purchase a house. For him, buying a house means buying a fixer upper - a serious fixer-upper. It reminded me how I learned to work on old houses.

He called to ask, “Dad, can you come down to Atlanta and help me assess what needed to be done on my house? Dad, I don’t want you to do the work l want to do it myself, but I don’t know much about carpentry or electrical work and I’m really not very confident tackling what needs to be done. If you could come down and help, show me how to do things and what tools I need, and maybe loan me some of your tools, then I can learn from you, ask you for advice when I’m in a bind, and do the rest myself.”

After I got down off cloud number 9 from where that complement sent me, and packed away my pride, I thought about how what he said so mirrors sanctification.

I realize I had absolutely no choice about being born in Akron, Ohio or growing up in Rome, GA where my father grew up, no choice to be born in a poor family barely a generation removed from poor, working farms or even of being on this green earth at all. Who I am, where I am, is all beyond my control. God put us here for his reasons.

Two of my blessings are my father and mother. My dad, long deceased, worked as an electrician with his stepfather early in his youth. His stepfather was the first one who didn’t work on a farm but they were still poor. Granddad and my tag-along Dad did most of the work that needed to be done. By the time my dad was an adult, he never hesitated to tackle a problem on our home. When he wanted to convert our duplex into a single family home he learned to build a roof truss in the attic so he could tear out a load-bearing wall and not have the ceiling fall.

My confidence came from watching my Dad do it. I learned not so much techniques as confidence in the face of challenge.  And now, here I have my son calling with the confidence he can do it, if I’ll help him learn.

 That confidence to do what needs to be done is what being reckoned righteous means -justification. I realized I could watch my Dad, or find the information in a book and then start trying it by myself.  My first few projects were not ready for Country Living Magazine or Fine Homebuilding, more likely better for firewood. But with every project my skill improved.

That practice and learning is what sanctification is all about, watching fellow Christians do good things; reading about how Jesus lived his life as a model for us; and practice, practice, practice. For us, the human catch to being reckoned righteous, of being justified without having any say to it is the hard work of sanctification that follows - unless we want to abuse that gift of righteousness.

Only God Can Do It

Why did Jesus come to earth?   God chose the time, place and human person. It is important is that Jesus came to earth as a human person and felt every positive and negative thought and urge…and experienced our death. This is God’s ultimate statement of our relationship to him, being a comrade in arms with Jesus.

He experienced every trial and temptation we experience but filled with the Holy Spirit, the helper and advocate, he remained sinless and fully sanctified. He promised to leave to us that Holy Spirit that he called our guide, our helper, our defender. Baptism is the mark of that we are justified righteous and empowered by the Holy Spirit with the charge to seek sanctification.

The task before us now is every day to get a little closer to living this life as Jesus lived his.

None of us are the perfect grain of wheat or rice to be plucked and placed in the granary as is. We are not gods. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Sin is the great equalizer. What we can do is work in humility with our fellow travelers seeking to perfect our behavior and thoughts, rubbing our shoulders with the world and breaking off the husks, the chaff and the dirt that cover us until we begin to shine like polished grains of life in the darkness of the world spreading the compassion being made righteousness brings.

We are reckoned righteous… God did that. We can’t say, “Oh today I’m going to be saved.” We can choose to say, “Today I know I am going to stumble, I’m going to forget to measure twice and cut once but with God’s help, the Holy Spirit, I am going to pick myself up from my stumble, hug my neighbor, ask for forgiveness, and begin again to perfect my living as an example of Christ.”

Paul said our path is to seek justice and peace. That is what the Church is about, that is what we are about, that is baptism is about. That is what Jesus being on earth is about - growing in justice and peace honoring the greatest two commandments. Amen.