Day 1826 – Are You Working for Peace or Negotiating a Faustian Bargain?

Isaiah 40:1-11

2 Peter 3:8-15

A sermon shared with my dear friends at First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, December 10, 2017

Are you striving for Peace or looking for a Faustian Bargain?

How frequently in daily life do we pause to ask, “Am I living a holy and godly life waiting for and hastening the coming day of the Lord?” If we believe his promise to come again, are we striving for peace without a blemish suggesting otherwise, or are we hoping it will not be tomorrow?

      You may, or may not have heard of the man “Doctor Faust,” (or Faustus)?  A 500-year-old legend dating to the late 15^th century describes an educated man who was dissatisfied with life and impatient to gain the knowledge of the future to give him power over today. Satan offered him a deal to have it all.  People widely identify with this story as a reflection on life. Famous playwrights and authors wrote of it. In the 1500’s the playwright Christopher Marlowe, and in the late 1700’s, the famous German play/novelist Johan Goethe, made the legend famous with their own version.  Goethe supposedly worked on and off on this story for at least 60 years.

      The story of Dr. Faustus was originally a Christian moral story. It sounds somewhat the event on the mountain in the forty days in the desert when Satan offers Jesus all powers.

Doctor Faust was a highly successful magician and alchemist (we would call him a chemist or scientist today) who realized the more he learned about life and living the more he discovered that he could not gain enough human power through the knowledge of life to shape, control and enjoy the present.  He drifted away spiritually and concluded pure happiness can never be had. Satan offered Faust a bargain to lead him through the world for 24 years satisfying Faust’s desire for all knowledge and power and at the end, Satan would claim Faust’s soul for payment.

      In Goethe’s play, Faust did not believe Satan could make good on the bargain so he accepted the offer of finding true human knowledge and power that in the end did not include happiness. Satan led him to a beautiful woman who Faust fell madly in love, but his Satanic-given powers led to the ruin and death of her family. She survived but Faust overwhelmed by grief and shame over his deeds abandoned the woman and continued with Satan.

      Satan continued to lead Faust to great worldly power. Faust tamed and controlled the world of politics and nature and had it all.  Then, Satan calls in payment of Faust’s bargain.

In the old legend, the Devil carries Faust off to Hell, with the moral that all the powers one gathers in life cannot save the soul of one who deals with the devil for worldly gain.

      But in Faust’s play, Faust’s grief and shame over his evil deeds to the beautify woman and her family torment and never leave him. When Satan calls in the deal, the angels of heaven directed by God’s forgiving grace deliver Dr. Faust to heaven. God forgives and brings him into eternal grace because of Faust never stopped repenting in sorrow and shame. Goethe’s (and our) moral is God shows the gift of unmerited grace to every sorrowful repenting soul. For them, deals with the devil do not work. Dr. Faust is a tale of Christian faith and God’s grace.

      Why spend so much time on the story of Dr. Faust and his bargain with Satan? The weariness or loss of hope in the present and God’s care and action for us in the future parallels the message in 2 Peter. 2 Peter talks directly to the danger of despair and loss of hope, the same woes that the playwright Goethe revealed in Dr. Faust.

      It is worth noting that Paul’s letters are a window into the life and conflict within the early Christian congregations. The collected letters at the end of the New Testament (James, 1 Peter, Jude and 2 Peter, 1,2, 3) are called the “catholic” or universal letters.  As universal letters read by the church at large, they present a window into life of Mediterranean Christianity in the time after Paul has passed from the scene and the last remaining Apostles were dying.  It was a time of worry over mockery and persecution for their faith, and a time wondering about when or if Jesus shall return, and who if anyone would lead them after the Apostles were gone. The text of 2 Peter suggests Peter, probably the last remaining disciple, is near death (see 1:12-15).

      The Christian world of 2 Peter maybe 80 or 100 years after the crucifixion, was stressed by tension and arguments over scripture for all these reasons. Many Believers doubted that Jesus would return and some who had lost hope created alternative versions of Christianity that focused only on living for the present, not the future. They said satisfy your physical desires now since there is no future.

      Faust and 2 Peter go directly to this point of living for the present day. 2 Peter reminds us time for the Lord is different from time for humanity. To the Lord, a thousand years are like one day.

      2 Peter tells us not to let our impatience with the future make us doubt his promises because the Lord is good for his word. God loves us. The passage brings me back again to the ant and the grasshopper fable. Do not forget that Jesus said he will come as a thief in the night and everything will be revealed. The message the writer of 2 Peter sends is, “be on guard.” As Paul says to the Philippians, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

      Boiled down to its core, 2 Peter urges us to be aware of two things, (1) our vision of the future of Jesus’s promised return; and (2) whether we are using the present as a time for moral transformation and preparation to get ready for the future, or using the present only as a time to satisfy material wants.

      Our faith assures us that we know the day of the Lord will come to pass. Should we despair of the future? Or should we get ready for its coming?  Peter’s answer is hold on to hope, not despair, because, “We shall not walk this road alone.” If our faith sustains that belief in the future, then we need to ask whether or not we are using our time in the present for moral transformation - or not.

      The tale of Dr. Faust and his bargain with the devil explains or amplifies 2 Peter. It also is a good example of why we ought not dismiss the drama of famous novels and plays as not being the stuff of our own lives, but read, read, read.  Every day, great literature describes the challenges that we might consider our own Faustian bargains.

      Look around at our own world for examples. First, I'm not quibbling with anyone's political views, you are entitled to them. I am talking about choice and behavior. We have a president who enjoys support by many Christian groups who expect him to defend their specific denominational values in the political scene. Many of them have heard his open admission of using his power to abuse women and his broad disdain for women and anyone with less money and power than he has, and excuse it because he may further their political cause.  We have a man running for Senate with strong evidence showing as a 30 year-old man he abused under-aged teenagers. This man shows a life-long, total disregard for the rule of law and our Constitution.  Elected senators and their party officials, many who proudly wear the label, “Christian,” say they need the vote of this morally corrupt man in Congress to achieve their political goals. They say his actions, even if proven true, are minor thing. It is better to elect a morally corrupt ally than allow an honest person of the other party to win.  After all, God is on our side…

      Now, none of us know what faith sits in the heart of these people, and though we have admission of real transgressions of some, in others we may never get proof one way or the other about what sits in their heart. But it is a fact that the political leaders and their evangelical supporters who claim the be followers of Jesus do say it is better to elect corrupt men than a good person in order to achieve their political objectives. They are more than willing to overlook evil deeds done in the pursuit of power.  To me, that is a perfect Faustian bargain.  
      They ask Satan for power at the expense of everything spiritual that they claim to believe.  In the end, they shall answer as to whether they repent to their maker.

      But this political issue of abuse of under-aged teens and women is just a small part of a bigger problem.  

      These same evangelical folks push to proclaim Jerusalem the capital of Israel.  They read about the battle of the eagle and bear, and how the ascendancy of Jerusalem marks the beginning of the Parousia, the Day of the Lord (Go read the Revelation of John). They have waited long enough for the Day of the Lord and want the power to bring it about now!  Never mind God’s time, they operate on their time seeking to force God’s hand thereby denying God’s own power.  They seem like the folks in the time of 2 Peter who lost hope in God’s timeframe, and like Dr. Faustus.
      The core question is, “Are we ready to trade faith, love and hope for the future that God has promised for the immediate reward of worldly gain?”

      Has Christianity deteriorated today into forgetfulness of the promise of the Lord’s coming?  Do these political positions above represent what we believe as Christians? Have we transformed Christian practice into pursuit of happiness, pervasive suspicion of outsiders and completely disconnected ourselves from God’s time? Have we forgotten that in this time of waiting that we are expected to be the force for peace that shapes the world for a better future by our own personal moral transformation, not our power?

      The Day of the Lord will come with the Parousia or with our own death.

      I wonder if we have forgotten Paul’s three core principles, Faith, Love, and Hope. Do we have the faith to answer 2 Peter’s questions, “What sort of persons ought we to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness that waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Do our hearts contain the love of others to hope and work for their well being? Are we striving to be found by the Lord Jesus Christ at peace, without spot or blemish and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation?” Do you like 2 Peter’s words, “Regard the patience of the Lord as salvation?”

      This coming day of the Lord may panic you, but it ought to make you dream.  Take me. Relatively speaking, I am an old man with a young heart.  But I still dream dreams about the future.  Really, I do.  Naysayers cut off the future, dreamers are all that we all have for the future.  I dream about your future.  Every time I look at one of our young people I imagine what great things they will be doing in the world in 5, 10, 20 years from now as great parents, doctors, mayors, scientists, pastors, and more, making it a better place because you adults all helped them get there.  I want them to look at you and me, and our leaders and think, “I can do a better job if I do not let Faith, Love and Hope die. I can make this a more peaceful place with my own two hands as I wait for the Lord.”

      They need our help.  The future needs their hope.  Are you working for peace for them knowing it will come in God’s time? Or are you negotiating a Faustian Bargain?

Day 1812 - Don’t Stand in the Water Others Drink

A sermon at First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN on November 26, 2017 - the New Year's eve.

Ezekiel 34:11-24

Matthew 25: 31-46

This is Christ the King Sunday, the 33^rd Sunday after Easter, or of “ordinary time.”  It marks the end of the church year.  However, the question occurs to me, “Why do we celebrate the Kingdom of Jesus on only one Sunday of the church year?”…I guess it is the same question we raise about Christmas. “Why do we wait until Dec. 25 to celebrate the birth and life of Jesus?” Shouldn’t celebrate the birth and life of Jesus every day of the year? Shouldn’t we celebrate the Lordship of Jesus and the great gift of eternal life that he gives us likewise?

So, when I started thinking about these two holidays, I recalled the comments of a pastor who I respect. He observed (in so many words) that the power of the Old Testament does not rest on the kind of fire and brimstone that a lot of preachers like to dwell on - all the threats of judgment and punishment for failing to live according to the Law we read here in Ezekiel; but rather, the power of the Old Testament rests on where and how it points to Jesus and the gospel.

This passage in Ezekiel is a good example. On its face, Ezekiel speaks of the promise of the day of the Lord when we will all be brought together with the Lord, our God with his prince, David; but he places on equal footing the judgment and punishment of the Hebrews who failing to live according to the Law.

Ezekiel wrote during the Babylonian captivity. The Babylonian captivity was a time when few Jews continued to hold onto faith in the Lordship of God and believed that good future awaited them after captivity which Ezekiel described. Ezekiel said, “For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out... As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep...I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness,…from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains, by the rivers, and in all the inhabited parts of the land…I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice...my servant Davis shall be prince among them.” Doesn’t that sound Ezekiel is talking about Jesus and good news…seek the lost, the injured, the weak?

Ezekiel has so many important messages but let us concentrate on the most important thing in this passage. You read how similar Ezekiel sounds to the Mathew passage is how it similar it is to the passage from Matthew. Ezekiel helps us to understand it.

Ezekiel describes a loving, loyal, ever vigilant, and compassionate God who is like a shepherd is to his sheep. I hope you recall Debbie’s sermon on Psalm 23 in  which she described all the implications of the shepherd imagery. You know its beginning, “The Lord is my shepherd…”

God speaks powerful words through Ezekiel, “I will search for and gather the lost sheep…,I will rescue them…(and) feed them with good pasture by good water they may drink and bind up the injured.” He is describing the ideal shepherd, the person who goes to the very extreme to ensure the safety and wellbeing of his charge.

It is a promise of coming home. That promise of God of coming home goes far beyond a simple promise to the Judeans. It runs right up to the present. It is a promise to all by the compassionate God who created them. Ezekiel tells us they will return to the promised land. The good news is those words say to everyone, “There is a home.”…No matter what happens, there is a home.

It is a wonderful blessing. But Ezekiel offers threatening words for those who are glad to enjoy this blessing as the grasshopper enjoys summer flowers. Ezekiel describes them as “the fat and the strong.” They are the ones who stand in the clean stream with dirty feet.

The fat and the strong want to coast, to freeload, to be greedy, or to ignore how their behavior negatively impacts others that they meet. They are self-focused totally, and nothing else.

Remember, there was no indoor plumbing and water purification companies in biblical Palestine. Water was precious and safe to drink only when it was clean and pure. To walk up and into a stream with your dirty feet that your friends are kneeling to drink was a grave insult to the others. It symbolized the most egotistical attitude of not seeing others as persons to be treated with equality, or even see them at all.

Have you ever observed on the farm how cows stand in the old pond and do their business? That pond is filthy, no one steps in it. That is the image Ezekiel conjures up for me with standing in the stream with dirty feet.

These are harsh words for these fat and strong people. He accuses them with his questions, ^“Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture... must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet?  Must my sheep eat and drink what you have fouled with your feet?”

Purifying water is a powerful biblical image.  Do you remember Jesus and the woman at the well (John 4:1-15)? She asked Jesus where she could get some of that “living water” so she would never be thirsty again?”

I ask again, doesn’t Ezekiel sound a lot like the verses from Matthew that I read? Some translations call it “the judgment of the nations” passage.” Jesus speaks of the very same attitude as Ezekiel addressing the fat and the strong. Those who disregard others, whose disdain blinds them to the fact the weak and lean too are God’s children. It blinds them to the compassion that Jesus had for the sick and disabled, for the weak and oppressed, for the prisoner. It blinds them to the very reality of the life of Jesus that he lived to nurture the faith of others, and expects us to live that way also.  They spoil the living water?

Perhaps Jesus does invoke Ezekiel’s judgment of the fat and the strong here, but I think really Jesus is transforming Ezekiel’s judgment into an an invitation to look at our self, to examine our actions and see if our faith is truly in the Lordship of Jesus, or to set it right if it is focused on the Lordship of the world.

Let’s return to my first question, “Why do we celebrate the Lordship of Jesus on only one Sunday of the church year?”

Think about the answer this way. Next Sunday we begin the new church year with a four-week advent vigil. We usually think of the advent vigil as the period of waiting for Christmas to get here. But perhaps Christmas is only the crowning point. This month-long celebration is the the inauguration of the other period of waiting? The wait for the return of Jesus that Matthew describes. If we look at it that way, then this Sunday, Christ the King Sunday, is the capstone of the whole message and promise of Jesus that we hear at every Lord’s Supper: “Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the victory over death of the risen Lord, until he comes again. It is what we call a rehearsal of the good news and the teaching of Jesus of how to live a life according to the good news.

Let’s not hear Ezekiel and the “Judgement of the Nations” in Matthew as a condemnation of evil people, of the fat and strong, but rather as a reminder, a cautionary tale.  

Each scripture passage we read and hear preached throughout the whole church year from advent to Christ the King Sunday is about the promise of His return to bring us home at last. Every Sunday scripture is a lesson on living as Christ’s representative, keeping that promise clearly in front of us in our minds so that we are ready for home. They are not passages of judgment.

If your faith is in the Lordship of Jesus or not, people and God will know truly where you stand – with them, or with dirty feet in the water they drink.