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March 28, 2010
“A Palm Sunday Action Figure Jesus”
Zechariah 9: 9/Luke 19: 28 - 46
Sunday, March 28, 2010
It is said that George Lucas made as much if not more money from the licensing of his Star Wars characters action figures as from the Star Wars movies. Since his success in both areas, many stories and movies seem to be written and produced with as much of a concern about licensing products and action figures as about creating a successful novel or movie.
If Luke had written his account of the day we call Palm Sunday in our time, we might suspect that he had an eye on marketing an action figure of Jesus as he wrote his account because he shows us the most active Palm Sunday Jesus of the Gospel records. So on this Palm Sunday morning, as we look at Luke’s account of the first Palm Sunday, I want to think about the actions of Jesus and what they were to convey to those present and to us.
First we see Jesus in a quiet moment, on the Mount of Olives. His group had joined other groups who were processing into Jerusalem for the pre-Passover events which were held annually in that city. It appears that while some of the other groups of pilgrims went on into the city, Jesus and his group stopped on the Mount of Olives. Jesus called aside two Apostles and instructed them to go into a nearby village, probably Bethpage, and fetch a young male donkey that had never been ridden. He told them where they could find the donkey and what they were to say to its owners.
This was all probably pre-arranged by Jesus with the owners of the donkey, but the Apostles were only informed of this part of Jesus’ plan at this point. Sometimes, God does not let us in on how he has prepared for what he wants us to do. Some missionaries have discovered that God had for years been preparing people for their coming, but they did not know that when they felt God calling them to be missionaries. When you feel that God is calling you to do something, remember that God may have been preparing others to be receptive to what God is asking you to do.
Jesus did not select a young male donkey to ride on that day as a simple matter of preference. He did it in deliberate fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9 and following, which we read as our first lesson today. In riding into Jerusalem on this beast Jesus was proclaiming that he was the long-expected Messiah.
His Apostles and other followers and some of the other folks who were traveling into Jerusalem that day understood what he was doing and they responded by rejoicing. They shouted, waved palms, and put their coats on the donkey and in the road in front of Jesus and sang “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven” and other things.
By these actions and sayings they were stating that they, or at least some of them, understood that Jesus was the Messiah, the great king whom God had sent to them. They also understood that what was happening on their little parcel of earth was affecting and causing events in God’s residence in heaven. Heavenly beings were praising God in heaven as people were praising Jesus on the way into Jerusalem. So our first action figure Jesus would protray him riding on a small donkey being praised as the Messiah.
But I need to add that in the midst of all this great celebration there were dissenters. Some of those traveling into Jerusalem near Jesus were Pharisees. They did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah and they did not appreciate all the praises. They asked Jesus to order his disciples to stop their praises. He refused. He replied “If these were silent, the stones would shout out”.
I think we need to see his response directed in two ways. First of all he is stating that the events of the day, while orchestrated by him were also planned by God. It was the will of the Almighty on that day that praises would accompany Jesus, and there would be praises even if the stones along the side of the road would have to shout.
But Jesus was also aiming his response at them. By refusing to admit that he was the Messiah, they displayed that they were harder than rocks. This is important because in our life with Jesus in this world, we will meet people whose resistance to accepting Jesus makes them spiritually has hard as rocks.
But I urge caution here. I have heard and read Christian apologists and evangelists who sometimes equate hardness with lack of intellect. They imply that some otherwise brilliant people are really stupid because they do not accept Jesus as the Son of God. That does a tremendous disservice to many unbelievers. They are not stupid, they just do not or cannot believe. We need to recognize their intellects and their wisdom while praying that God will soften them and enable them to believe.
So, our first pose for an action figure of Jesus on Palm Sunday would be of a bold, joyous, defiant Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey while being praised by his followers and others. Why did I say defiant? Because the chief priests and others had already put a price on his head. They were seeking information about Jesus that would lead to his conviction and death and were willing to pay for such information. On Palm Sunday, Jesus triumphantly and defiantly rode into the city where his enemies lived and ruled over the temple.
But Luke tells us that at one point in the procession, Jesus paused and his demeanor changed. As they followed the meandering road from the Mount of Olives to the gates of Jerusalem they got a couple of different views of the city of Jerusalem. Usually these views were the occasion of greater praising and singing on the part of pilgrims going up to Jerusalem. But at one of these points in his journey, Jesus stopped and cried out a lament over the city. He predicted its destruction and the virtual annihilation of its residents because they did not recognize him as the Messiah.
Here we see a sad Jesus, a Jesus with bowed head and crying eyes while sitting on that donkey. As all Jews do, Jesus loved the city of Jerusalem and its people, but he would allow terrible things to happen to them because of their disobedience and unbelief. Now I want to remind you that the Jews living in Jerusalem were probably no more disobedient than we have been. We are promised salvation not because of our obedience, but because of our belief in Jesus.
Now we get into the real action part of Palm Sunday. According to Luke’s and Matthew’s accounts, Jesus entered into Jerusalem and probably after dismounting from the donkey, entered the Temple and drove out the money changers and those who sold sacrificial animals there.
The selling of animals and the changing of money were necessary items. Each family who celebrated Passover in Jerusalem would probably offer a sacrifice in the courtyard of the temple. These sacrificial animals needed to be perfect, without a flaw. Since the people came into Jerusalem from all over Palestine and beyond for the Passover, there needed to be a place where they could purchase such animals locally. There was a market on the Mount of Olives where such animals were sold. Such animals needed to be sold somewhere in the vicinity, but not in the temple court. That was where Jews and Gentiles were invited to pray and study the scriptures. It was not to be a noisy market. It was especially not to be a place where people would be cheated which seems to have been occurring through the exorbitant prices for some of the animals.
Jesus also drove out money changers. All Jewish men had to pay an annual temple tax at the temple in Jerusalem. Many paid this tax during their annual Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Now the tax had to be paid with money that did not have the image of man on it. The commonly used Roman currency had pictures or images of people, as do all our coins and bills. So in Jerusalem there were kept a lot of coins minted in Tyre that had no pictures of people. There was of course a premium attached for purchasing such coins. Money exchanges were necessary, but having them in the temple courtyard and allowing them to make unfair profits from people who desired to Worship God was improper.
So Jesus got off his donkey and cleaned house. Did he think this would make a difference in the long run? Probably not. Some stands have to be taken, some declarations need to be made, even if lack of success seems guaranteed.
So the Jesus we see on Palm Sunday was the Messiah, our King riding into Jerusalem. He was the king who grieved over his disobedient and unbelieving people. He was the king who took action to clean up corruption and malfeasance in his temple.
If we are to follow him, we must praise him as King, grieve with him over those who disobey and reject him, and receive his call to stand up for Him when people corrupt his world and his church, even though the odds might be against us.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2010
“One Served, One Ate, One Annointed”
John 12: 1-11
Sunday, March 21, 2010
For over 30 years I was the Pastor of a church named Bethany Presbyterian Church. I always found it interesting that next door to that Bethany church there lived a family whose two oldest children were named Mary and Martha. You might wonder, as my wife once did, if they had son named Lazarus. No, they named their son James Malcolm Mackereth Junior. For many of us family names take precedence over other influences when we name our children.
The reason the name of Lazarus was sometimes thought to be the best for the Mackereth’s son was because of the family of friends Jesus had in the village of Bethany. Bethany was a small village about 2 miles from the walls of Jerusalem. Jesus seems to have visited there often when he was in the vicinity of Jerusalem. He seems to have staged his triumphal entry into Jerusalem from there and it also seems that he spent the nights between Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday in Bethany in the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, or camping on the Mount of Olives.
We are looking at this passage today because John places this event shortly before the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday. Mark and Matthew place the event during Holy week. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday so I wanted to look at an event that happened at that stage in Jesus ministry.
What I really want to look at this morning are the behaviors of the 3 siblings who were friends of Jesus. Bethany is well known to those who read the bible because of Lazarus. On an earlier visit to Bethany, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. In fact, Bethany was so well known for the raising of Lazarus that the village on that site today is known as Al Eizariya which means “the place of Lazarus.”
If the event recorded in Mark and Matthew is the same as this one, this meal was held in the home of Simon the Leper. This might seem a little confusing to those of us who are reading the NRSV in which the text begins “Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus.” The word translated “home” means “place” and is better translated “hometown” of Lazarus. The old RSV translates it as “…Bethany, where Lazarus was.”
We are told in this passage that Lazarus was at the table with Jesus. In other words, he was one of the guests at the meal. It doesn’t appear that Lazarus did or said anything to attract notice at the dinner. He didn’t need to. He was a dead man who had become alive again through the power of Jesus. That made him famous and made Jesus even more famous. When people heard that Jesus and Lazarus were together again in Bethany, they came out to see them (probably after the dinner) and many believed in Jesus.
Because of this, the chief priests, who had already decided to find a way to kill Jesus, also decided to have Lazarus killed.
Lazarus was helpful in bringing others to Jesus just because he was alive. His presence alone spoke volumes about the power of Jesus. Some of us, because of who we were and who we now are can be powerful witnesses to Christ. People can see new life in us because of the way we talk and the things we do.
Lazarus attracted a lot of attention at that meal and afterwards because he displayed the power of Christ in his new life. He was out there, among believers and unbelievers to silently testify to the power of Jesus. As such, Lazarus provides a good example for us.
Several years ago there were evangelism programs that were categorized as “friendship evangelism”. Those programs encouraged and equipped Christians to bring their non-Christian friends to Christ, to help them to believe in him. Do you know what the problem with this approach was? For the most part only new Christians or recently converted Christians knew or had any close relationships with unbelievers. Christians seem to mostly prefer the company of those who share their beliefs and world-view. That is understandable, but we also need to develop relationships with unbelievers so we can show and tell them what a Christian looks like and encourage them to become Christians.
Lazarus was out there, in the world, eating and conversing with believers and unbelievers. He was a living testimony to the power of Jesus. So must we be.
There are only two words in this passage that describe Martha’s activities during the meal. “Martha served”. This is what Martha usually did. On a previous occasion she had been serving and became upset that her sister Mary was sitting near Jesus as he taught. She complained to Jesus. A few weeks ago our Thursday evening Bible Study discussed that other passage and the ladies present kind of ambushed the men who were there, particularly me, so I really don’t want to go there today. I will just say that for most events that honor Jesus, some have to serve. Food has to be prepared, tables have to be set, rooms have to arranged and cleaned afterwards. We at Faith Church have a fine group of people who serve in this manner. Some are on committees, some aren’t. But they need to know they are pleasing and honoring God by serving in this manner. So today, We thank all of you. Just remember, even when we forget to thank you, God is pleased with your service.
That brings us to Mary. She had a very valuable large supply of perfumed oil in a fancy stone flask. She broke open the flask and poured out the entire contents on Jesus as a sign of honor and love. Our passage tells us that she anointed his feet, Matthew and Mark tell us that she anointed his head. It seems as if this act was without a lot of thought since she did not bring a towel. The oil that was applied to his feet and flowed off his feet she wiped with her hair.
Luke tells us that the whole “house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume”. And then is seems that there was the stink of envy and greed. Judas began to criticize her act and others seem to have added to the criticism. The critics charged that Mary’s act of love and devotion was fiscally irresponsible. That was a charge to be taken seriously in those days as well as in our own time.
The perfumed oil was worth a lot of money. A denarius was a day’s wage for a day laborer, so considering their six day work week, the value of that perfume could have fed a family for almost a year.
John tells us that Judas was not really concerned about the poor, he was the treasurer of the apostles and sometimes stole their money, a fact probably learned later, after his traitorious act. But the logic was still sound, or appears to have been. Many kind and loving deeds to neighbors and others could have been done with the money gotten from the sale of the now lost perfume.
But Jesus argued that the perfume was not lost. By anointing him with it, she had prepared his body for the burial that would take place in less than a week.
Did she know that he would be killed soon? If so, she had learned more from Jesus than even his apostles in this matter.
Jesus’ response in verse 7 is difficult to understand, but two things are clear: 1, her act was honorable and admirable, and 2, it in some way honored his coming death.
That is a timely thought for us. In less than two weeks we will be celebrating Jesus death and resurrection. Is there some special, even extravagant way for you to honor Jesus as this great event is celebrated? Have you had some crazy idea about how you might honor Jesus? People have done some strange things to honor Jesus. Paintings have been painted and commissioned. Choral and symphonic works have been commissioned and written and performed. Statues have been commissioned and erected. Church buildings have been constructed. And as a result of these acts of extravagance, people and cultures and civilizations have benefited and God has been honored.
I am sure there were many hungry people in the days of Michaelangelo and Bach and Handel. And I am sure that some of them were fed by Christians and some weren’t. But the money used to pay Bach for his works and Handel for “The Messiah” and Michaelangelo for his bit of work in the Sistene Chapel have benefited generations of Christians and non-Christians alike.
I think all three of these siblings of the family at Bethany behaved in ways to be emulated by us.
Martha Served, we are all to serve to work for God and his people.
Lazarus did not withdraw from people. He was out and about demonstrating the new life he had received from Jesus.
Mary did a deed of great value and extravagance for Jesus. He had overcome the death of her brother and she loved him dearly. So she poured out a bottle of expensive perfume all over him. Jesus has overcome and will overcome death for you and many of your loved ones. What could you do for him?
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2010
“The Changing Times”
Joshua 5: 8-15/II Corinthians 5: 16-21
Sunday, March 14, 2010
So far, the most important word of the last few years seems to be Change. Change is being talked about everywhere. There are changes in banking and the stock market, Climate Changes. Changes in the economy. Even much discussed and rumored changes at Purdue University. Relationships within and between nations are occurring so quickly that our leaders and their information gathering networks are finding it difficult to keep up.
Living at such a time is interesting for those of us who turn to the scriptures for our guidance and inspiration. Looking at it in 2010 the bible seems to be a document that was written during times when things did not change all that much for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. Life for Abraham was not all that different from the living conditions during the life of Moses 400 to 600 years later. But even though the changes did not come as often then as they do now, Changes did happen, and, if you look closely at the books that form our bible, you will see that most of them were written during times when there were some very dramatic changes occurring. This morning we are looking at two passages that give God’s advice during changing times.
The first passage we are looking at this morning was our first lesson. It is from the Old Testament. It describes a time of great change in a time of many changes. 40 years before this event the changes and started to occur. Moses had been sent by God to Egypt to remove the Israelites from slavery in Egypt which also involved removing them from Egypt. Then they went to Sinai where God constituted them as a Nation with their own constitution. But for the next 40 years they were a nation without a land, wandering in the wilderness.
A lot of changes happened during those 40 years. All of those who were adults when they left Egypt died during those 40 years so at the end of those 40 years there were only a few over the age of 60. At the end of the 40 years, Moses, their leader died and Joshua was chosen as the new leader. Joshua led them across the Jordan and into the Promised Land to their first stopping place within what would become their own land. This passage describes some of the events that occurred there.
The first event that is referred to is the circumcision of all those men who had been born during the 40 years in the wilderness. They had not circumcised the babies born in the wilderness, but now they needed to go back to one of the practices that had set them apart as descendants of Abraham, the friend of God.
One of the temptations in times of great change is to think that everything new is good and everything old is bad or out of date. Sometimes when we feel lost in a sea of change it is good to go back to some of the practices that we may have let slip, practices that may have defined our existence at one time.
Some of us may not be praying or reading our bibles or attending church as often as we once did. Some of the changes that have occurred in our lives seemed to have taken up some of that time. If you feel that you are lost in all the changes, if you feel that you don’t know who you are any more, return to some of those activities that you did when you did know who you were, especially those activities that will bring you back to God.
Following the circumcisions, The people celebrated Passover. They had the feast that commemorated their deliverance from Egypt 40 years earlier. They celebrated the meal not with the manna they had been given in the wilderness, but with the produce of the fields on the plain to the East of Jericho. And at that point the manna ceased. They did not need it any more, they were now in a land where food could be grown.
Sometimes the things God gives us to form our lives with Him are temporary. When Mother Teresa started her extraordinary life of service to God she felt a remarkable closeness to God. At some point that feeling of closeness went away. She longed for its return, but she did not loose her faith or stop serving God. Sometimes we miss some of the old things and wonder why God took them from us. He usually does it to replace them with something better, or because he knows we no longer need them.
From the camp near Jericho, Joshua went out to scout out the city that he would eventually be attacking. He met a man who had a sword in his hand. Joshua wanted to know if he was friend or foe. He said “Are you one of us, or one of our adversaries?” The man answered “As commander of the army of the Lord I have now come”.
In the civil war of the U.S., people on both sides thought that God was on their side. We often like to think we can sign God up for our causes and our sides. But the real fact to be discovered is whether or not we are on God’s side. God has clearly stated where he stands on most issues if we will read his scriptures. In all the changes in our lives we need to be asking ourselves if as we change, are we still on God’s side, are we still interested in the things God cares about? Are we still trying to help others come to know God?
The man (who seems to have been God himself) told Joshua to take off his sandals because the ground was Holy, on it he was meeting God. Sometimes God comes to us in the times of our great changes. When he does, we are on Holy Ground. For the Christian, every step should be on Holy ground.
Now I would like to look at our second passage. As Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth in the First Century, Christ had brought a lot of changes to him and to them. One of those changes involved how he saw people. He wrote “We regard no one from a human point of view…”
What is a human point of view? Seeing people through their externals, the way they dress, their race, their height, weight, how wealthy they appear to be or are. We Christians are not to do that. We are to see every person as a creature of God created in God’s image. There is something of great worth in each person. But the image has been obscured by the fallen-ness of each person. We are to see each person either as one who believes in Christ or one whom God wants to believe in Jesus.
Paul said that he had especially changed in his view of Jesus. He used to see him from a human point of view, as a human, but as he wrote he saw him as the glorified son of God. The Jesus we read about in the bible still exists, but he is now glorified having been returned to his natural place at the Father’s side. He once appeared as a weak human being. Now he is king of kings and lord of lords. He is not your kind human friend, he is the ruler of the universe.
Then Paul wrote “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; Everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ…”
In all of our lives, in times when we face great changes, we are to be new people, Not old people. Old people are stuck in the old sinful ways of the world. New people display the newness and freshness of God’s eternal kingdom as they live. New people see people and situations with God’s eyes and as opportunities to serve God.
In the 20th verse of our second lesson Paul wrote something that might seem strange in a letter written to Christians. He wrote “we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
The people to whom Paul wrote this were Christians. They were believers in Jesus. They had been reconciled to God through Christ. So why was Paul exhorting them to be reconciled to God?
Because through the changes in our lives and the changes in our cultures and communities it is easy to respond in the old fallen human ways and not in godly ways. As we go through stressful changing times we need to be the new creatures God has called us to be. We need to allow God to expose to us our worldly ways of thinking and living and responding. In all of the changes of your life, in all things, be reconciled to God, be known as one who represents Him.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 05:06 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2010
“Partners”
I Corinthians 10: 1-22
Sunday, March 7, 2010
You are about to be invited to be the recipient of a great privilege. In a few moments you will be invited to receive the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. As we prepare to receive this great blessing, I want to look at some things that the Apostle Paul said about those who receive this sacrament in I Cor. 10: 1-22.
To be fair to our text, I want you to know that Paul is in the middle of a larger subject, that of whether or not Christians should eat at sacrificial meals in pagan temples and if they should eat food that had been offered at such feasts even if it was later served to them in private homes or purchased by them in the markets. He has already ruled that since the gods of the pagans are not really gods, food that has been offered to them or “blessed” by their priests and priestesses has not really been affected in any way and can be safely eaten by Christians who do not believe in those false gods. Christian knowledge and Christian freedom gives them the right to eat such food. Having established that there is such a thing as Christian freedom, he then moved into the passage we are looking at this morning to warn that Christians need to be careful as to how they use their freedom.
Since we are about to participate in the Lord’s Supper, I want to look first at some things he says in the later parts of this passage in verses 16-18. We read: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing of the blood of Christ? the bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of one bread. Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?”
I think the key concepts here are sharing and partners. When we participate in this sacrament we are sharing in the body and blood of Christ, we are sharing in his sacrifice. We are proclaiming to be His partners, we are those for whom he died. And as we commune together we are proclaiming that we are all partners with each other through our partnerships in or with Christ.
The problem is that many of us are like a little boy who lived in my house when he was 3 or 4 years old. That was when he went through his cowboy stage. He had a little vest and a cowboy hat and a bandana tied around his neck. And for a few days he went around the house saying to everyone “Howdy Partner”. He of course had no idea what a partner really was.
We who partake of this sacrament need to think about how we are being partners of and with Christ and how we are being partners with other Christians. How are we working together, and supporting and helping each other in our endeavors of helping others to hear the good news about Jesus and helping others to have faith in Jesus?
Now I would like to turn to the first part of the passage. Verses 1-14. Paul writes about people who had a partnership agreement with God years before. They were the Israelites who came out of Egypt with Moses as the leader whom God sent to them. Paul argues that those Israelites had their own sacramental connections to Moses and God. They were “baptized” into Moses as their leader by following him through the dry sea-bed and through the moist cloud which protected them from the pursuing Egyptians.
In the wilderness they were fed with a miraculous bread-like substance called Mannah and given water which miraculously came from a rock. So, in a sense they were sacramentally bound to Moses and God in a partnership.
You might remember that that partnership did not go well at first. Those early Israelites did not seem to understand that their part of the partnership involved their following, obeying, and trusting Moses and God. They did not trust God and on many occasions complained about where he was taking them and about the miraculous provisions God made for them.
They disobeyed the command against making and worshipping Idols. And they had adulterous relationships with foreign women and followed after their false Gods.
And all of the adults who were over 20 when they left Egypt died in the wilderness (except two, Joshua and Caleb). They died by the sword, by plague and by poisonous snakes.
All of this was written down as an example for all Christians, including the Corinthian Christians to whom Paul wrote and us in our own time and place.
By taking this sacrament we are claiming that we are partners with Christ and each other. In this sacrament we are once again spiritually united with Jesus in his death. But the blessings of this sacrament only protect us when we live up to our side of the partnership. We need to obey and believe in Jesus. And we need to help each other.
Paul wrote in the 19th- 20th verses that the Corinthian Christians who ate with pagans in the pagan temples and perhaps some of them who ate food which had been sacrificed to idols were in danger of being in partnership with demons or satanic forces. We who claim to be partners with Christ through this sacrament need to examine our lives and see if we might be by our behaviors or alliances in danger of being in some anti-Christian partnerships. Be careful, You do not want to provoke the lord to jealousy. You are his partner and he will support you when you are obedient and may act against you if and when you violate the partnership agreement.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)