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February 25, 2007
The Rejected Sacrament
Genesis 18: 1-8/John 13: 1-17
February 25th, 2007
Over the years I’ve thought of Jesus’ words in John 13 a lot. After washing His disciples’ feet on Maundy Thursday Jesus said, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you an example in order that you yourselves do also . . . if you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
And then, as if anticipating the reluctance future disciples would have Jesus said, “Truly, truly I say to you all, the servant is not greater than his lord, neither the one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.”
The word for “blessed” here is the same as in the Sermon on the Mount. We don’t know what to do with the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the poor in spirit—no way; blessed are the meek—yeah really; blessed are the peacemakers—maybe sometimes.” Is it any wonder that a Christian should mull these strange teachings of Jesus? They are so counter to our instincts that they must be guidance to more heavenly living than comes natural. Following Jesus doesn’t come naturally.
We might say that when Jesus said “you ought” to do this it’s just a bit less than “DO IT.” “Ought” seems just a bit less emphatic than “DO IT.” What did Jesus mean when He said, “You ought to wash one another’s feet?” We don’t see a stern look in Jesus’ eyes as a rule.
In the Greek text the word for “ought” is the verb opheilo, which means: “owe, be obligated, or ought.”
I looked in my chubby Moulton and Geden’s Concordance to the Greek New Testament, fifth edition to see what kind of obligation is intended when this word is used elsewhere. I can’t mention them all because it appears thirty-five times in the New Testament. Thirteen of these are in the Gospels; two in John’s Gospel. The other place in John is in 19: 7, where Jesus’ Jewish antagonists say to Pilate, “We have a law, and by that law he ought to die because he has made Himself the Son of God.” In this case Jesus’ enemies wrongly quoted Scripture, but their intention is obvious. They wanted Jesus killed.
“Ought” means far more than a suggestion.
We use the word variously. For example I might say, “I ought to go to the store before a blizzard to make sure we have milk and bread.” In fact we use the word carelessly, reducing its meaning to whimsy, as in—“I ought to get a haircut.” But when I say, “I ought to show up at the court when I get a subpoena,” I mean if I don’t respond to a subpoena I will go to jail for contempt of court. This is a bit worse than running out of milk and bread.
Do you think we should wonder how serious Jesus was when He said we ought to wash one another’s feet? It’s not a heaven or hell kind of issue—since we’re saved by grace alone. But is it a fair question, “What did Jesus intend for us when He said this?” Does this matter?
What’s going on in our intentions when we put Jesus’ commands through a filter to screen out the real commands from the mere “good ideas?” All the segments of Christendom, except the Brethren and a few others in the Anabaptist tradition have filtered this command of Jesus out of consideration. The Roman Catholic Church, with its seven Sacraments does not include foot washing among them, although on Maundy Thursday the pope has a ceremony of washing the feet of twelve people in Rome.
What is a Sacrament? It’s not a term found in the Bible. The Church made up the term as it pondered Jesus’ array of commands.
In the Reformed heritage we say that Jesus’ specific command is the qualification for a Sacrament. So we celebrate the Lord’s Supper because He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” And we celebrate Baptism because Jesus commanded that when we proclaim the Gospel we are to baptize those who respond in the name of the Holy Trinity—and preach obedience to all that Jesus commanded to do. But how do our two Sacraments differ from other commands Jesus made?
I noticed something in re-reading Donald Baillie’s wonderful little book on the Sacraments that there is one further qualification we Reformed Christians have regarding the Sacraments. They must not only be commanded by Jesus; they must also contain a promise. What is lacking in foot-washing is that there appears to be no promise included with the “ought” Jesus mentioned. For this reason foot-washing is not a Sacrament.
Yet, if we did this most demonstrative act to one another is there not at least an implied promise” “If you do this for one another you will cultivate a servant’s heart.” That’s a promise. If we reminded each other how central mutual service is to being a part of a Christian community is there not the implied promise of a community committed to serving one another?
And so God has given commands to us that, though not strictly speaking required, if we do them the church will be better for it—indeed, it will be what He intended. When we treat as optional “odd” commands Jesus made, well, see the kinds of people-difficulties we wrestle with in the Church.
There are commands Jesus made that we see as hints at the direction our thoughts should go. Are the Beatitudes commands? Well, not exactly. The Beatitudes, all those “Blessed are you ifs” are just hints to guide us against our natural inclinations. It is not my natural way to bless those who curse me. It is not my natural way to pray for those who use me despitefully. It is not my way to feel fortunate if I’m persecuted for a righteous act. So when I read, “Blessed are you if . . .” it wasn’t exactly a command. I don’t have to obey this kind of teaching. I’m just blessed if I do.
Then there is another category of Jesus’ commands that blends with common sense. Because of this we take these commands less like commands than like wise advice. Jesus said, later in this chapter from John’s Gospel, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
We don’t have to look too long or far to realize that we have set up other standards for being identified as Jesus’ disciples. When I was examined for ordination I don’t recall any inventory to see how thorough was my love for others. I was scrutinized by some on matters of doctrine. I was tested by others in terms of my knowledge of church government. I was tested to see if I knew enough about the Bible—in a very superficial way. And even more superficially I was checked out to see if I knew an aleph and an alpha from an eggplant—that is, if I was acquainted with the languages of Scripture. But never was I examined to see if I loved as Jesus said was the standard for recognizing His disciples.
A like omission is evident with regard to Jesus’ command to forgive. Peter asked how often he ought to forgive. As many as seven times? You know Jesus’ answer well. “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Regularly in our public praying together we repeat the Lord’s Prayer with its “and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” We know that there is a stern emphasis Jesus gives to the command to forgive. “For if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses.”
You know how we take the commands to love as Jesus loved and to forgive. We take them as suggestions too demanding to be considered at face value. What we believe is more important to us than taking Jesus’ commands of this sort to heart in a way that reshapes character.
But back to foot-washing itself. Perhaps we may see what happened in our reading from Genesis as an anticipation and rationale for Jesus’ teaching concerning foot-washing. There is an understood law of hospitality among desert peoples. When strangers come to you, wandering through the inhospitable desert, treat them with hospitality. It just so happened that when Abraham celebrated the desert sacrament of hospitality he was entertaining God. One of the three men who came to Abraham he calls by the name of God, YHWH, or LORD—capital letters.
And who knows what place Abraham’s celebrating the sacrament of hospitality meant in the plan of God. It was at this time, as the LORD enjoyed Abraham’s hospitality along with the two men who were with him, who were actually angels, that the LORD told Abraham and Sarah that in the spring she would bear a son. I wonder what would have been the case if Abraham had not offered the desert sacrament of hospitality to the LORD. We don’t know.
Before Abraham knew the nature of his three guests, he obeyed this “optional” law, this virtuous custom that God put into the hearts of desert people that made the lot of the traveler more secure and removed the fear of the vulnerability of desert-travel.
My impression is that there may be a parallel between the desert sacrament of hospitality and Jesus’ command, or should we say “strong recommendation” to His disciples: Wash one another’s feet. In days when it was as gracious a thing to do as to offer someone a cool drink on a hot summer day in our time, gracious hosts washed the feet of their guests. What is parallel to this in our day? What would it mean to you if you discovered you’d washed Jesus’ feet unawares—out of sheer obedience?
I have thought of these matters in terms of the questions, “Why the Sacraments at all? Why do we celebrate The Lord’s Supper and Baptism?” There are some Protestant bodies that don’t do either one. The Quakers, for example, and until recently the Salvation Army had no Communion and no Baptism.
Donald Baillie remarks that many “intelligent and educated Christians are content with the more reasonable and rational elements in public worship, preaching and praying and the reading of Scripture and the expression of praise in musical form.” Performing the liturgical acts of breaking bread, pouring out wine, and pouring water of the head seem to be vestiges of earlier days when people believed in magic. Indeed, in some churches I have seen these two Sacraments administered very casually. They are treated not so much as sacred moments when God is uniquely obeyed, but as casual gestures reminiscent of what was once important.
Which of the commands that Jesus gave do you think we ought to obey? And why should we obey them? I shouldn’t leave you with questions, I suppose. But it has been the way of the Church, particularly since the Reformation to so emphasize grace that we don’t know how to handle the idea of commands. The commands that coordinate with our predispositions we take seriously. The commands that put a strain on our natural behavior we put into a different category. We interpret them oddly. I know that Jesus’ command to wash one another’s feet is treated as essentially a reminder on the virtue of serving one another.
But I leave you with the question: “Do you think that Jesus may have more than this in mind? And maybe if we took to heart this command as well as the imperatives to love as He loved, and to forgive multiple times, along with the Beatitudes as more than impossible norms, something more supernatural might seem to be at work in being a Christian, a follower of Jesus? Think on these things.
Let us pray: O Lord, we who are fragile hear you speak and we ask your grace to take you at your word, that we may be faithful followers of Jesus. In whose name we pray. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 10:33 AM
February 18, 2007
Facing the Opportunity that Defines Life
Numbers 21: 4-9/John 12: 31-43
February 18th, 2007
I find myself thinking quite a bit these days about the choices and opportunities long ago that led to the work I have done for all these years. How did I go from that young lad so unsure of what to make of the Bible’s guidance in life to a pastor whose task it is to speak to people from the Bible?
I think Moses must have felt like this too. “How did I go from nearly being fed to the Nile crocodiles as a baby to being the one chosen by Almighty God to communicate His word to this difficult mob of Israelites little knowing all history was included in this audience?”
What we read in the Bible describes events that happened day after day as unanticipated as the events that come to you and me in the course of life. There were consequences that came as a result of choices Moses and the Israelites made. Somehow these choices unfolded against the backdrop of a great plan God was working out for the benefit of the whole human race—including you and me.
There are two places in the Gospel of John where the writer refers back to the story Mike just read for us from the Book of Numbers. This was a pivot moment in the life of our ancient forbears in the faith. But they had no idea it was so.
All they knew at the time was that they were weary and fed up with Moses. He had led them through harsh terrain for as many years as it took for babies to reach their mid-thirties. They were near their destination but, to use a basketball term appropriate to our time and place, a near miss is as painful as an air-ball when the game is at stake.
They had just passed Mt. Hor where they had buried Moses’ brother, Aaron. It’s not exactly clear today where Mt. Hor was because the names of places have changed. Some geographers think Mt Hor was the same as Mt. Hermon, a mountain that the psalmist refers to very cheerfully many years later. Its twin peaks are often covered with snow.
Maybe you remember Psalm 133, a psalm that rejoices at the restoration of fellowship between Moses and Aaron. This unity “is like the dew of Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life for evermore.”
But that happy time of reunion between Moses and Aaron in the past was far different from the present. Now Mt. Hor was the place where Moses’ brother had just been buried. The people liked Aaron because he dared to stand up to his little brother, Moses. He was their ally when the going was hard.
Now he was gone. All they had was their own murmuring as a way to vent their feelings. Food and water were scarce. Squeaking wheels get grease. So SQUEAK—NOT PRAY OR TRY.
The people didn’t have the painful duties of leadership as Moses did. Moses too was tired. He no doubt responded to his weariness by imploring God every morning and evening to show him the way to go. Day after day God said merely, “Keep walking.” Tired and impatient the people grumbled.
It is a common human response to difficulty or disappointment. Do we not do our share of this? They spoke against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water and we loathe this worthless food.” They said it to Moses, but they meant it for God. We may see something positive here. At least they believed that God was leading them, just not in the way they wanted.
God responded to their rebellion. Elsewhere we read that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Rebellion works black magic on the human spirit. It ruins families. It undermines communities. It breeds divisiveness. It PREVENTS COOPERATIVE EFFORTS.
So God sent poisonous snakes to fix their problem of grumbling. Nothing quite fixes one’s attention on what is important like a good snake bite. The snakes bit many people. Many people died. So the people got the idea that they had spoken one time too many against the Lord and against Moses. They stopped grumbling and begged Moses to pray the Lord to take away the serpents.
We’re not told that God took away the snakes. Instead God told Moses to set a bronze snake up on a post. Anyone who looked up at that bronze snake was healed of the snake’s venom. There is an old Jewish reflection on this story that I find pertinent today.
“It was not the sight of the serpent of brass that brought with it healing and life; but whenever those who had been bitten by the serpents raised their eyes upward and subordinated their hearts to the will of the heavenly Father, they were healed; if they gave no thought to God, they perished.”
This interpretation adds an insight to what we read in Numbers. The way we read the story it seems that no matter what was in peoples’ minds, if they looked up at that bronze snake they were cured of their snake bite. But it was looking up to God that really mattered.
Jesus too seemed to see in that ancient story that God looked for the state of the peoples’ hearts. When Jesus spoke with Nicodemas as recorded in John 3: 14-15 the Lord compared believing in Him with looking up at the bronze serpent for the ancient Israelites. Indeed, the word “snake” is suggestive in the Bible with the terrible affliction called sin. In Genesis 3 it was the serpent that beguiled Eve so that she ate of the forbidden fruit. This first act of disobedience polluted the human race.
Jesus said that believing in Him was like the ancient Jews looking up at the bronze snake. Though Jesus was not in any way like the snake, he said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.”
It is a curious thing that Jesus should compare His benefit to us sinners with the bronze statue of the very serpents that inflicted the lethal bites on the Israelites. But we get the point. And the Jewish midrash seems to catch this point. It was the upward look of need to God that God wanted to see in His people. In trust they looked up to the source of their healing—that God commanded Moses to make.
Well, we must think of what Jesus said in the passage before us this morning. Jesus had just been introduced to two Greek men who wanted to see Him. Instead of speaking with them directly Jesus seemed to be filled with the sense of His destiny.
“The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.” He then spoke those words that defined life in a way we find so hard to grasp: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Jesus then turned his thoughts to His Father in prayer. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour?” It seems Jesus didn’t know what to ask of His heavenly Father now. He dreaded losing His life—that led to finding it, fulfilling His purpose.
After Jesus spoke people heard sounds from the skies that seemed to be like thunder. They looked at Jesus who was evidently enveloped in His profound reveries. They heard His prayer. And then Jesus turned from praying to notice those who were around Him. “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.” The Hebrew word meaning voice is the same as the word for sound. They heard a sound; Jesus heard a voice. The sound made them look up as the voice made Jesus look up. They thought it was thunder. Only Jesus seemed to know that it was His Father speaking to Him..
It occurs to me that their inability to understand what God spoke to His Son then was like our inability to understand the roar of a lion. Another lion will hear the roar and no doubt hears significances that we can’t pick up. All we hear is the fearsome sound. But another lion hears a voice in an idiom it recognizes.
Then Jesus spoke to those with him referring again to that episode about which we read this morning from the Book of Numbers. “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” John tells us that when Jesus said this He referred to the manner of His death—by crucifixion. Those who gathered around Jesus caught this meaning. They were totally confused.
“We have heard from the law that the Christ remains for ever. How can you say that the Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”
The Book of Daniel that was so important to the Jewish people in their time of trials, used this term Son of Man in a very suggestive way. We read of Daniel’s vision:
I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of Man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away.
The kingdom of the Son of Man was to have no end. How could Jesus speak of being crucified if He was this Son of Man?
I think that those who gathered around Jesus were not skeptical so much as they were puzzled. This section begins with the Greeks who wanted to see Jesus, so Philip and Andrew brought them just in time to hear Jesus speak these haunting words. The strong words Jesus spoke about those who do not believe were said to people who felt positively toward Jesus, it seems.
There is much here that it would be interesting to discuss with you this morning. But the clock is not my friend. So I must get to the specific word Jesus said that leaps out at me from this intense passage in the Gospel of John.
Jesus said, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you . . . while you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
This sounds nearly gnostic; it seems so mysterious. But Jesus could scarcely have been more practical. Jesus used the term “walk” as a synonym for “believe” in order to make clear that to believe is not merely to hold ideas about Him. To believe is to live in a certain way. “Walk” is a very Hebrew idea that refers to life as it was lived in a day before there were transportation vehicles. In Jesus’ day too people mostly got from here to there by walking. The Hebrew word for “go” is “walk.”
So believing in Jesus was walking with Jesus. Jesus’ ways were ways of light. No hidden-ness. No deceitfulness. No posturing as religious. No complaining. Just straight-out walking with Him who went from Bethlehem to Calvary out of submission to the will of God.
What is the application of all of this to us? All of us are here this morning because we have ideas about Jesus that we think of as believing in Him. We all find difficulty in walking in Jesus’ way. Our difficulty is that life is filled with events that sometimes make us fearful and sometimes grumpy. We feel the way should be more clear than it is.
We should draw a line in our minds connecting the grumbling of the ancient Israelites with our own grumbling. I doubt that God will send snakes to bite us when we grumble, but for sure when we are rebellious inside our grumbling eats at us. It poisons us. And the only way to be cured of our poisonous grumbling is to look at Jesus. But Jesus says that it’s not just looking at Him, which we do in some sort of religious way, particularly as we near the season of Lent and Easter. Instead, looking at Jesus means deliberately following in His way—in particular when doing what Jesus said to do is the least appealing thing in the world. The Sermon on the Mount is to jar us out of lethargy in following Jesus. “Blessed are you when men revile you…” and “bless those who persecute you.” All of that.
When we choose to live other than Jesus leads us, we walk in darkness. Walk your way and you stumble and fall. We feel out of sorts. But if we look at Jesus and will humble ourselves to follow Him, we walk in the light. Then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from our sin.
Let us walk with Jesus. We will walk with Him if we try to walk with Him. We won’t be walking with Him if this idea isn’t even in our heads. We little realize how our future is sculpted by what we choose to do in moments like this when God puts before us a clear idea to which we must respond. Let us choose to follow Jesus.
Let us pray: O God, thank you for sending us Jesus, the light of the world. Help us to follow Him. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM
February 11, 2007
Jesus and the Good Life
Ruth 1: 1-18/John 12: 20-26
February 11th, 2007
Isaac Watts, the great 18th century hymn-writer, was pastor of a dissenting congregation in London. Dissenting congregations broke away from the Church of England in the trying days when the bishops were authoritarian in ways that stifled the church. Watts is well known for his Communion hymn,
“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”
But Watts wrote another hymn I must have sung often when I was young. It has been running through my mind this week though I have not heard this song in decades. Here are three stanzas of this hymn.
Am I a soldier of the cross,
a follower of the Lamb?_
And shall I fear to own His cause
or blush to speak His name?_
Must I be carried to the skies_
on flowery beds of ease,_
While others fought to win the prize
and sailed through bloody seas?
Sure I must fight, if I would reign; _
increase my courage, Lord;_
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain, _
supported by Thy Word.
I think this old hymn came to mind because I’ve been chewing on a question: “what did Jesus expect of His followers two thousand years later?” It’s a question that arises from my work as a pastor.
Isaac Watts served as pastor for fifty years, many of these years in a London congregation during one of the most decadent centuries of the Church in England. Its problems were both like and unlike the acids now at work in the American Episcopal Church and in our own denomination.
Some earnest Christians like the family of Charles and John Wesley remained within the Church of England, striving for reform. Their kind, dubbed “Methodists”—were eventually forced out of the Church of England. Others like the family into which Isaac Watts was born at great cost to themselves separated from the established Church.
I have thought of these two kinds of response to the troubled 18th century English Church as I have thought of the two responses now evident in a number of denominations in our troubled century: to remain and work for reform or to dissent and leave. How similar were the high and low levels of life in the 18th and 21st centuries. Some great saints, men and women, then and now rise above the ordinary. But violence and decadence then as violence and decadence now have grasped the popular imagination even of Christians. The issues today are not exactly the same as in the 18th century, but in both the same human weaknesses prevail.
Within the vast and vibrant sector of protest today, within the ranks of independent-minded evangelical Protestantism, grave and embarrassing problems persist. There are desperate moral problems in the ranks of pastors and people that ought not to be. The sin of pride raises its dreary head among us. Matters of right thought and behavior are as important as issues of belief.
Part of the cause of this distress is what has been made of the great Bible doctrine of justification by faith alone. The New Testament teaches clearly that we are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith in Jesus alone, and not of our own virtuous deeds.
But the kind of emphasis this doctrine has received has made it seem that it takes very little effort to be a “follower of the Lamb.” We may be lured to Jesus with the question, “Do you want a happy life?” Of course! And then the answer, “Jesus is the answer.” As an old Gospel song put it, “Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.” Indeed, it seems inappropriate to try very hard. “What do you think you’re doing, earning your salvation?”
I’m so grateful for our heritage as Presbyterians. Our roots reach deep into the Church of the apostles and martyrs who gave their lives to preserve for us the Gospel. With such a wonderful heritage, what has happened? There are several factors in our distress whose effects we lament but whose causes we cherish.
We are victims of our prosperity—of our lack of material need. We are victims of our political clout just now. We are victims of our freedom and of our passion for freedom. Obedience to any authority beyond personal choice is out of fashion.
What is the cure? The cure will come, one by one, as we ask what Isaac Watts asked, “Am I a follower of the Lamb?” And then look for a true answer.
St. Paul reminded us that without grace we’re all lost. But he wrote this while “working out his own salvation with fear and trembling.” He taught about grace while concerned that after having preached to others he might be disqualified, or a castaway, as the KJV puts it so vividly.
I don’t perceive this kind of concern nowadays. Our concern is much much about that disobedient THEM. It is not clear what is the unique goodness of a Christian for having become a follower of the Lamb.
Without intending in any way to introduce a dreary, introspective, and morose kind of religion, I hear Isaac Watts asking himself, “Am I a follower of the Lamb?” And I think it is a pertinent question to revive today.
I say this to you because it is my duty to do so, but it is a question I ask myself. I wonder what might happen if we were all to declare a moratorium on noticing the under-achieving going on beyond us, and one by one took issue with our own achievement as followers of the Lamb.
What ambition is appropriate to a follower of the Lamb? David’s words in the psalm we read this morning haunt me.
“One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to enjoy the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.”
This is a thought-provoking verse, rather mystical. “One thing I have asked of the Lord?” Is it not a bit narrow to have that one thing be “to dwell in the house of the Lord the rest of my life?” Maybe a bit passive?
Would it not be more productive to ask God to use His considerable gifts to me in such a way that He is glorified? Should David not have desired to make Israel glorious beyond compare as a harbinger of the Kingdom of God? No. It was a seemingly passive quest, to “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” Sometimes when the deep matters are put into words they don’t sound very “productive.”
David admitted the same kind of thing St. Augustine did when he confessed that his heart was restless unless it found repose in God. As David put it in another psalm, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” And again “my flesh longs for thee as in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.” This does not mean that things were idle at Jerusalem’s worship center. Priests were busy with their sacrifices. David’s issue was what was in Isaac Watts’ mind when he asked, “Am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb?”
It was for David a rudder adjustment he needed in the voyage of life. Regardless of what’s going on out there, the major battle is what’s going on in here.
This train of thought was stirred further in me this week as I thought of Jesus’ words in our Gospel
lesson. “The one who loves his life loses it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” This is a very individual matter. My life. Your life. Just two chapters earlier we read Jesus’ words about His sheep, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.” What then is this abundant life?
Jesus’ words about losing and keeping life come at the close of a section that begins with some Greek fellows approaching His disciple, Philip, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Maybe they’d seen Jesus but knew there was more to Him than met the eye. Greeks were deep thinkers. They wanted to see into Jesus’ depths.
Andrew and Philip told Jesus about these Greek fellows’ interest in Him. Jesus seemed oblivious of them, or maybe he meant, “It’s the best of times to look at me because the time has come for the Son of man to be glorified.” Here is my great moment. But what kind of great moment was this? It was as though Jesus had Isaac Watts’ ideal in mind:
Sure I must fight, if I would reign; _
increase my courage, Lord;_
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain, _
supported by Thy Word.
Jesus went on to explain His moment, “Truly, truly, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus’ goal was to bear a lot of fruit. Indeed, a whole world of fruit. What is this fruit like? I ask, what is that fruit like today? Eventually it will look like, “every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Does this mean a vast throng of groveling humanity? I don’t think so. I think it will be more like what takes place after a great musical performance. In the packed music hall everyone’s heart has been grasped by the beauty of sound, the virtuosity of the performers who are lost in their music. The Bach partita is finished and there is a moment of rapt silence. And then throughout the massive hall people stand, unselfconsciously, tears in their eyes, applauding and calling out “Bravo!” Such scenes are a faint harbinger of what it will be like when every knee spontaneously bends at the sight of Jesus, and no lip can restrain the response that wells up within the heart, “Jesus is Lord,” the fondest words a person can imagine. We live in the time between.
This is a vision that has got lost in the shuffle of Christianity. Jesus showed Himself as a good Shepherd. He wanted abundant life for His sheep. So He tells them: “the one who loves his life loses it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life?”
Life’s bounty comes a bit differently than the ordinary person expects. I’ve read one explanation of Jesus’ meaning in this odd remark that makes very good sense but is probably wrong. The writer proposed that the modern application of this teaching is that anyone who goes after a large ambition must sacrifice to get there. If you want to be great in your field, you can’t get to greatness without self-sacrifice. You must sacrifice sleep and social life. But this is not what Jesus meant.
I have the hunch that the attitude of Ruth that we saw this morning reflected to her mother-in-law Naomi gives us something of the beauty and passion Jesus had in mind.
Ruth said to Naomi, her mother-in-law, “Only one thing I want, to go where you go, to let your God be my God, to let your people be my people.” As it turned out Ruth’s devotion had a remarkable outcome. But that’s beside the point. She had no idea she would be great-grandmother of Israel’s greatest King, and in the family line in which the Messiah was born. She forgot her own well-being. In losing her life she was finding it. She had no idea that she was prefiguring the attitude of her distant descendant, Jesus, who gave His life in order that you and I might have life abundant.
You and I will find life if we are, one by one followers of the Lamb. We will not find this life so long as we try to find it in all the ways that are common in a prosperous, free society. You may get your own way, willy nilly, and lose your life. No matter what Christian gloss we give to our self-seeking, we need to become followers of the Lamb.
I suppose it’s appropriate that we don’t know who the author of the song was, who wrote her or his confession, “I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back; no turning back. Though none should join me, still I will follow. No turning back; no turning back.”
Let us pray: O Lamb of God, we want to follow You. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 09:29 AM
February 04, 2007
What About the Poor Always with Us?
Exodus 23: 1-11 / John 12: 1-8
February 4th, 2007
Let me distract your thoughts for a few moments from the Super Bowl.
In fact, let me direct our thoughts to an event much less conspicuous, but far more memorable. We just read together of one of the most remarkable moments in Jesus’ life. It was a moment He enjoyed. All four Gospels describe one such moment. Two of them tell us Jesus said, “wherever this Gospel is preached what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Of HER, not of HIM.
Luke’s Gospel tells us she was a woman of the street. She intruded at a respectable dinner uninvited. Jesus reclined with good people. In she came. She risked censure, perhaps even violent dismissal from the house. Call the cops. But, since Jesus did not pull back from her neither did anyone else. All watched as, apparently oblivious to all others there her tears flowed as they poured out mingling with the precious ointment on His feet. She tenderly massaged His feet.
We know something about Mary of Bethany of whom we read shortly ago. She was seemingly a good person in an upright family. She was a close friend of Jesus, along with her sister and brother. Mary was anointing Jesus for His burial. It was as though she was already sorrowing for Him. We’re also told something about the unnamed woman in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus had forgiven her in some unforgettable way. She was overwhelmed with gratitude to Jesus.
But of the woman mentioned in Matthew and Mark we know little. Jesus said of the woman in Matthew that she had done something beautiful for Him. How did this woman happen to have this ointment? Was she too a woman of the street like the one mentioned in Luke? Maybe she had bought the ointment to make herself smell good for her tragic career serving the lust of men. It was a business investment for her. She used that costly perfume, all of it, on Jesus’ feet instead.
When we tell the Gospel when do we get right to this part of the story? “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” one presentation of the Gospel rightly says. But when do we get to hear about this woman, or maybe these women who so loved Jesus? Do we let it be known that it is appropriate to feel great gratitude so that a lavish act of thanks is OK?
I sense that when we lead people to Jesus we don’t make it clear that lavish gratitude is appropriate—perhaps we are so reserved in our own gratitude that the inference is never made. But look at how we eulogize the magnanimity of Jesus—that He should stoop to our lowly estate and die for us. The rich gift need not only be for Him to give. Indeed—we need to give grandly or we may not give at all—and be left in the shadows of a poorly spent life.
Rather than recognizing the gratitude of the women the disciples responded oddly. Each woman’s deed is paired with a hostile response from Jesus’ disciples. Matthew tells us it was not just Judas but all the disciples that chided the woman. Such injudicious use of all that money. “This ointment might have been sold for a large sum, and given to the poor.” Jesus replied, “You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”
What? Most unlike Jesus as we think of Him—the Man for others. Jesus sounds so callous. Did not Moses tell us in our Old Testament reading today—care for the poor!!
Did Jesus not say in the chapter just before this in Matthew’s gospel “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to the least of these my brethren you did it to me.” Not “as unto me,” but “to me.” This woman’s deed was as good as though she were visiting someone in prison, or feeding the hungry, or clothing the meagerly clad that were out in the cold.
Mother Teresa would say when she picked up the starving skeleton of a person, racked with disease, from the slums of Calcutta, that she was caring for Jesus. This was her way of pouring ointment on Jesus’ feet. And the world so admired her for this that she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
We admire, even if from a distance, great acts of mercy to the suffering. But, like the disciples of Jesus, we’re not sure what to do with the uninhibited generosity of these women to Jesus—or, for that matter, too magnanimous care of the poor—since poverty is everywhere and people might be taking advantage of us.
This is an odd section of the Gospels to apply. We are rightfully cautious about great expenditures on beautiful buildings to honor God. Instead of constructing a multi-million dollar cathedral with an expensive pipe organ such as Notre Dame Cathedral, let’s give the money to the poor. Was Jesus telling us that it’s maybe OK to spend a lot on a lavish place of worship even though the poor desperately need our care? When we put this side by side with the Parable of the Sheep and Goats are we to see that it is a both-and proposition and not an either-or proposition. Do both—worship grandly and give generously.
But maybe we are not to think of this dichotomy at all. Perhaps the lesson you and I are to hear very privately in our hearts is there is great value in maverick love for Jesus. Deeds of love for Jesus have two benefits. First, they are good for the soul of the one who pours out a lavish gift for the love of God. Second, deeds like this, because they are rare, are like good seed that may fall on fertile ground. Someone who needs to make a generous offering, a life-outpouring act, may hear and recognize this is what her heart longs to do.
Harry Emerson Fosdick preached a sermon many years ago, “The Hope of the World in its Minorities.” He preached this in the large, affluent Riverside Church in New York City. In his flock were the movers and shakers of society. He said to them, “History has depended, not on the ninety-eight per cent, but on the two per cent [both for good and for ill]. Jesus has use for good seed, “though but a few kernels, which if carefully sown, might multiply itself.” The example of generous hearts, generous out of gratitude catches on with other hearts prepared.
I thought of what a tiny fraction of all the responses to Jesus is represented in these women’s response to Jesus.
Many people came to listen to Jesus. We do that too. He had wise lessons to teach. Many thronged to Him to get their diseases healed, to get their tummies filled with food—to get something from Him. We are not to think ill of these needy folk. After all we come to Jesus for healing and for God’s supply.
Then there were twelve men who left their homes and livelihoods to follow Him. And they did well. They provided the foundation for “The Church of the Apostles and Martyrs.”
But there is only this one woman whose deed Jesus said would be included in the Gospel story. Talk about a minority! One woman, or maybe it was three women who threw caution and modesty to the winds. They lavished on Jesus their affectionate devotion. And Jesus said this would be told wherever the Gospel would be heard.
Why did Jesus say this? Jesus teaches us, “Let your light so shine that others will see it and glorify God” Jesus says to all of us with our tiny candles. Few of us have great gifts. All of us have something. What this woman had was a jar of expensive ointment. But we still smell its fragrance.
Jesus tells us, “Remember this woman who anointed my feet and wiped them with her hair.” Let’s let her deed serve as good seed in us. What if this smaller than two-percent minority-deed were the leaven that leavened the dough of this congregation, and of each gathering of Christians that listens to the Gospel story?
Now it is happily sometimes the case when an idea grabs hold of people that great movements begin. Some of these movements do a lot of good. I think of the great good World Vision is doing in impoverished nations. Thank God for Bob Cook’s vision for digging wells in parched lands, supplying clean water to drink as well as for irrigation—and so much else.
I think of Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship that got going when he was in prison and recognized how badly people in prison are often treated. He has given hope to many people around the world in prison as his vision has spread. Dan Taylor’s wonderful work at Trinity Mission. How many folk in our town have been rescued from lives enslaved to drugs and alcohol through Dan’s disciplined vision. I am grateful for the good done by World Vision, and Trinity Mission, and Joe Micon who so long served LUM, and of Dana Hobson at Life Care Services, and the many other noble ventures that serve humanity in Jesus’ name.
But when you come right down to it these movements gather in few of all the millions of people who claim to be followers of Jesus. You and I may send periodic donations to this or that effort. We may even volunteer some time to serve with LUM or other worthy ventures. But we live our lives as individuals much more than we live them as participants in great movements.
I wonder if Jesus calls our attention to the lavish, solitary act of this woman in order to grasp the imagination and the heart of particular people who will be infected with her kind of devotion in the small place where they live. Thus they will turn small opportunities into major moments of personal love for Jesus.
The things we do already, the Vacation Bible School, the Sunday School, the choir, the work of deacons and elders, the maintenance of our facilities, the outreach to the jail and to the retirement communities and nursing homes come to life when this person or that is aflame with the love of Christ. What a difference there is between going through the motions and doing one’s task filled with the love of Christ.
Ponder this with me. Do you see a place where your own passion for Jesus is needed? What costly ointment do we have to pour on Jesus’ feet?
Today as we take the elements of Jesus’ body, the bread and the wine, we remember how lavish was His gift to you and me. Well might we sing with Isaac Watts, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” But we’re not asked to measure our response by some standard of large or small. Let that other song move us: “Take my like and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee.” And then find our way to do it.
I remember that Jesus did not tell His disciples or anyone else that they should do as she did. It has to come from within us. He did tell us to love one another as He loved, but not to love Him in this way. But maybe if we recognize the love of Jesus we will find a way to love Him lavishly.
Lord grant us so to love you that the impulse that moved the women that anointed Jesus feet will find a place in our hearts. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 09:28 AM