June 3, 2012 Trinity Sunday

John 3:1-17

  ¹ Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”⁴ “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷ You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

⁹ “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.¹⁰ “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? ¹¹ Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹² I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. ¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵ that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

   ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

 "HOW CAN THESE THINGS BE?"

Nicodemus wanted to believe Jesus,

but his head got in the way of his heart.

His heart said, “Go for it!”

“Follow Him!”

“This is the One!”

but his head asked, “How can these things be?”

He tried his best but he couldn't figure Jesus out.

Not yet anyway.  He did become a secret believer and he was with Joseph of Arimathea when Jesus body was buried.  But today he is wondering what it is all about, and asking “How can these things be?” 

 How can it be that we have to be born again...and again...and again...and again, again, again?  Born from above;  of the Spirit;  of the one God sent?

It can be because we do not make it be.  God does!

And because we never get it all at the first time, or the second, or third.

We have to be born many times, over and over again as it slowly sinks in that God’s “love never ends and dazzling grace always is’.  And it is for all!  All!

An insight I have gained over the years as a Pastor.

In religion, Issues of the heart are deeper and more powerful then of the head.  We don’t think our way into faith;  we are captured by that which penetrates into the depths of our souls and there creates peace, joy, love, 

and hope, and enables us to say, “Lord I believe;  help mine  unbelief.”

It was with the heart more then the head that the unknown person spoke when it was written on the wall of a cellar in Calogne Germany during World War II - 

  “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

    I believe in love, even when I feel it not.

    I believe in God, even when He is silent.”

But how can these things be,  we ask?

How can it be that God so loved the world that he gave his only  Son ...in order that the world (and that includes me and you) might be saved.  

It can be because God makes it be.  For God not only created the world.  God also became entangled with life on this planet when He chose to send his Son to ”pitch his tent with us.”  To dwell among us as one of us!   Who “for our sake was crucified” as we confess in the Nicene Creed.

 A second insight which has  been reinforced and impressed upon me over the years: At our best we are still imperfect.  we are still , as Luther says."lost and condemned creatures"  At our best, we still need forgiveness.

At our best we fall far short, and need to confess our sins and be forgiven.

BE forgiven.  

We often talk about being forgiving.  Maybe we need to talk more about being forgiven.  For we are never without the need of forgiveness.  We never outlive our need for forgiveness.  We are never holy enough, righteous enough, faithful enough, good enough to not need forgiveness - daily.

As one person put it in a novel I reread recently, “We have to forgive.  We have to forgive because in the end we all need forgiveness.” 

Absolute Truths, p.525

But how can these things be we ask?    How can it be that “it is by grace (we are) saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”  Eph.. 2:8,9

It can be because God makes it be.  

As we heard in our 2nd Lesson - “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God”.  All who have been touched by the gift of God’s grace walk this earth as children of God.   And with the gift of grace comes the call to be a servant, the call to make our  “faith active in love. “ 

For as James says, “faith without works is dead.”  James 3:17

A true gift is also a responsibility.  As Patricia Hampl so clearly reminds us when she reflects on receiving a $275,000 genius grant from the MacArther Foundation.  Not knowing who nominated her; not knowing who choose her; she said the only thing she could do to show how thankful she was was to“give the gift.”

This is our challenge too.  To give the gift we have been given.  The gift of faith and hope and love.  The gift of compassion as a way of life.

A third insight which has come over the years,  as I’ve struggled with my mind to grasp the mysteries of God’s grace and love.

As Christians,  we are not to judge and condemn;

nor are we to parade around as those who think God loves us best or maybe even most, if not only.  That is not the purpose of John 3:16 - an egotistical, arrogant, condemning attitude towards all who hold different views of God.

We are to be compassionate as our God is compassionate and let God sort them out;  let God handle judgment.

If there is any word which has come into focus for me in the 35 years of parish ministry it is the word compassion.

Compassion - mercy - pity - sympathetic - tender - responsive - inclusive - steadfast love - all words used to try capture what it is.

It is, in the raw greek - “to be moved in one’s bowels” - to be moved deep within to act on behalf of others.  To make the world ‘gentle’ for others so they have a chance too.

Whatever else it means - to be compassionate is to err on the side of mercy not judgment; it is to, in the words of  P. T. Forsythe, allow our faith to become “a power and passion in authority among the powers and passions of life.”

“He Came By Night”

He came by night to ask the question we all ask - only he didn’t know what he was asking and we often don’t either.  It is the question which arises our of our need for a Savior as Dr. Thielicke puts it:

“At root very primitive things play the decisive role in our lives.  Our stomach with its need of nourishment, our conscience with its lack of peace and our death towards which we irresistibly move...these are the forces which decisively constitute life.  The one who can master these, taking away anxiety, consoling the conscience and supporting us in dying is the one for whom we truly look  Nicodemus had an obscure feeling that Jesus might be that person.”  Out Of the Depths, p. 63

How does this happen?  Being born anew? 

It happens like falling in love.  It happens not because we figure lit out but because we let the wind of God’s forgiving love and grace blow over us.  God does it.  We just let God do it by surrendering ourselves to God and feeling the power of his grace at work in our lives.

The wind blows - the sun shines- God’s love is real.  Let it happen to you.

“God Is Predictably Unpredictable”   

The wind is predictably unpredictable.  So is the Spirit of God.  It blows where it will.  We do not control it nor can we always predict it. God loves whom God will - and that includes those I would exclude.  It is the world God desires to save, not just us. For as Paul says,   “(God) will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and compassion on whom He will have compassion.” Rom 9:15

John 3:16 is a statement of grace, not judgment; love not condemnation.  It is a statement of divine generosity.

God sent Jesus into the world not so we could gloat over being children of God but so we could say, God is for you too, whether you know it or not.  To be born again is to face the truth that God loves all people and it is to face this truth over and over and over again, until it finally sinks in.

As those who believe in Christ we are to live as those who are led by the Spirit of God,

which means others will be glad we were given the gift of life, and of faith!

May 27, 2012 The Day Of Pentecost

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

   ²⁶ “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. ²⁷ And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

 I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, ⁵ but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. ⁷ But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸ When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹ about sin, because people do not believe in me; ¹⁰ about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; ¹¹ and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

¹² “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

“The Energy Of The Spirit”

The Holy Spirit is about power.  Power to believe; power to show mercy and kindness; power to live in hope.  Power to change and be changed.  It is an energizing power.

Energy: the capacity for vigorous activity.

God gives us his Spirit to be creatively alive, creatively different (sometimes disturbingly so) and creatively compassionate.

This is what is needed in our world today - revolutionary and redemptive activity!

Forging a anew humanity in Jesus name.

A humanity which erases distinctions between people.

      which regards none from the human point of view, but Jesus’ point of view.

          where forgiveness is paramount.

“To think of changing the world by changing the people in it may be an act of great faith;

to talk of changing the world without changing the people in it is an act of lunacy.”

Lord Eustace Percy

May 20, 2012 Seventh Sunday of Easter

John 17:6-19

  ⁶ “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. ⁸ For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹ I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. ¹¹ I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. ¹² While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

   ¹³ “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. ¹⁴ I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. ¹⁵ My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷ Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

 “In But Not Of The World”

Prepositions are important little words.  They hold the big words together and give them direction.  i.e. “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the face of the earth.”  

We are called to be IN the world but not OF the world.  This does not mean we negate the world,  have no fun,  know no joy. It means we have a different perspective by which we see the world.  Being sanctified in the truth that God loves me, calls me, challenges me to live so that in all I say and do something of God’s love is present.  

The world tells us that money is enough;  God’s word tells us that money is never enough.

Only love and intimacy is enough. God’s love for us and our love which flows out of God’s love into all our being.

“Becoming a Christian is changing our power base...from money to the cross.  There are two things to work on ( in our being sanctified) prayer and money.  And don’t  let any of us think that we are not in trouble every second.”   Anonymous

We need to spend more time along with God and God’s Word.  Not to be better informed; but to be better formed by God’s Word.

“Never let the limits of your understanding become the limits of your faith.”

    Howard Campbell

 “People Of the Word”

The story is told of a Norwegian pastor who, during the German occupation of World War II was called into the Gestapo Headquarters for interrogation.  Before the Gestapo officer began he took his Luger out and placed in on the desk.  Immediately the pastor pulled out his Bible and placed in beside the Luger.  “Why did you do that?” the officer asked.  “You put your weapon on the table, I did too!”, replied the Pastor.

The Bible is our weapon - not for evil but for good.  To be sanctified in it’s truth is to live in love and compassion, not hatred and condemnation. 

We are to dare risk loving rather than hating for loving is a more difficult and profound emotion.  It can do what nothing else can do!

Dr. Martin Luther King in “Strength to Love” identifies what love can do:

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.

Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.

Hatred darkens life; loved illumines it.

 “In The Word”  

The Church lives in the Word of God.

“I prayed for faith, and thought that someday faith would come down and strike me like lightening.  but faith did not seem to come.  One day i read in the 10th Chapter of Romans: ’Now faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God!”  I had closed my Bible and prayed for faith.  I now opened my Bible and began to study, and faith has been growing ever since.”  Dwight L Moody

God speaks to us through the Bible.  It is not magic; it is an encounter with a living Word.

To be in the Word is to be sanctified by the Word.  We will be changed, more then we thought possible.  We will also be confronted with challenges which will cause us to struggle more then we like.  It is a struggle to live as a child of God in the world of men (and women).

To be in God’s Word requires discipline; I listen and obey, trusting this is the way.

The Church lives in the Word; it is it’s meat and potatoes.  We are the Church.  How are we eating these days???

May 13, 2012 Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 15:9-17

   ⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

“Appointed To Love”

God is love.  This is the first and the last thing we can say about God.  This is the bedrock of our faith.  This is enough to live on and enough to die on.

Alan Jones, “Soul Making” has a chapter titled “Love: God’s Wild Card.”

Here are a couple of quotes from that chapter.

“All I know is that love of some kind has got hold of me and will not let me go.  That is why I describe myself as a believer and put up with the embarrassment of being seen in some dreadful company.  And I am grateful for the many people (both friends and strangers) who don’t mind being seen with me!”  p. 127

“I began to happen in a new way (my soul comes to life) when someone says, ‘Alan, sometimes you’re a mess, often your infuriating, and I love you!’  The soul cannot breath when a persons says, ‘there are some problems we have to iron out - in fact, you’re the major one - before I can tell whether I love you or not.’”  p. 134

God is love.  And God’s love is unconditional.  It is always waiting for us to open our hearts and let it have at us.  Then we also can love one another in a powerful and life giving way.

Jesus calls his disciples (and us) to be imaginative lovers.

We have been appointed to love, be it easy or hard; simple or extreme.

The four Chaplains on the Dorchester are an extreme example of love.

We may not be called upon for such an act of love, but we are called to love.

And that means to be there when we are needed and to not give up on one another.

God never stops loving us. We are appointed to love one another and never give up on love!

May 6, 2012 Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 15:1-8

¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

   ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

 “Remain In Me”

There is no doubt about it; by our fruits we are known.  Actions speak louder than words. Believing and doing always go together.  For “demand is laid on us the same moment grace meets us.”

St. Francis of Assisi - “It is no use walking any where to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”

Good fruit is a natural part of being “in Christ”.  When we remain in Him good things will come from our living.  For the fruit of the spirit - the fruit of His love and energy - will flow through us and enrich the lives of others.  

 “Bear Much Fruit”

To go to church is to risk being changed - changed into Christ’s likeness so we might be more fruitful in our living.  So we might bear much fruit.

Going to church will not keep bad things from happening to us. It will help make  good things happen through us. 

For it is there we are pruned so we can produce good fruit.  Pruned to love more and hate less.  Pruned to accept difference more and judge less.  Pruned so we can forgive more, trust more, be generous more, be more like Christ. 

We may not like it at first; it certainly will not be easy, but it is the way it is when Christ comes into our lives.  We are loved much; we must love much.

April 29, 2012 Fourth Sunday of Easter

John 10:11-18

  ¹¹ “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. ¹³ The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

   ¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— ¹⁵ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶ I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ¹⁷ The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. ¹⁸ No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”" 

“Life In All Its Fullness”

Ernest Hemingway - “The Sun Also Rises” - nobody but bullfighters ever really live “life all the way up.”  We don’t agree.

Jesus Christ tells us that life in all its fullness is His to give, and only his.

We don’t like this very much either!  For is not the fullness of life attained by achieving it? No.

Life is not to be discovered in things, objects and possessions; life is discovered in all its fullness in being known and in knowing, in relationships!

Herman Wouk, author of “The Caine Mutiny”

“It was my lot to reach quite young what many people consider the dream life of America:  success by my own efforts,

    a stream of dollars to spend’

    a penthouse in New York,

    forays to Hollywood’

  the companionship of pretty women’

all before lI was 24.  There I was in the realms of gold.  But even as I lived this conventional smart existence of inner show business and dreamed the conventional dreams, IT ALL SEEMED THIN.”  Sept, 21, 1959, Time Magazine

Life is relationships.  It is knowing and being known.  The fullness of life is discovered in the touch of others, and in the touch of the One who came that we might have life. Who calls us by name and knows us intimately, so we can be totally honest with him.  When we hear his voice and follow him we discover life all the way up.

“The Abundant Life”

Jesus came to give that which every living person desires - the abundant life.

We have no argument whit this.  We do have some questions about how he does this and some doubts as to what really makes up the abundant life.

He came to give us the abundant life.  We want to create it for ourselves.

How do we reconcile this?  

We don’t!  We don’t resolve the paradoxes of life with faith.

We discover in them - in the very experiences of life which seem to destroy - the meaning of our humanity.

We discover we have feet of clay but also are creatures of our God and King.

We discover that life is political, economic and social, but it is also spiritual.

We discover that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God, and in so discovering, we also discover the abundant life in Christ.

The abundant life is a gift, offered by Christ, received by faith.  It offers no pat answers to all the dangers and struggles of life.  It simply yet profoundly enables me to say, with confidence and hope in the face of all that life throws at me, “The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want.” 

To live the abundant life is to live knowing the Masters voice, and it is to be called by name.  Then it is to follow him, as he leads out into life.

“One Flock - One Shepherd”

There is one flock because there is one Shepherd.  There are many sheep and all are different.  There are numerous folds in the flock, and they are different.  Yet there is one flock and this flock is made up of all who hear the voice of the Shepherd and follow.

One thing is necessary within the unity which is ours in Christ and that is faithfulness to our confession that Jesus is Lord.  All else is secondary. 

Unity in the Church does not depend on sameness within the church, but upon oneness in Christ, in which there is room for differences.

April 22, 2012 Third Sunday of Easter

Luke 24:36b-48

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”³⁷ They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. ³⁸ He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? ³⁹ Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

⁴⁰ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. ⁴¹ And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” ⁴² They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³ and he took it and ate it in their presence.

   ⁴⁴ He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

   ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things.

 “They Disbelieved For Joy”

Good news as well as bad news is hard to believe.  It is too good to be true.

To disbelieve for joy is to believe that which is too good to be true.  It is perhaps the most honest way to hear and respond to the Easter message.

As Eugene Kennedy, says in his book, Believing, the disciples here are 

“experiencing an impulse to believe more deeply...a passionate need to believe as richly and profoundly as possible.”

For “believing cannot be activated by force or by fear.” It happens when we encounter the mystery of the resurrection.  And discover a truth which is too good to not be true!

Acts 3:12-19

¹² When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. ¹⁴ You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. ¹⁵ You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. ¹⁶ By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.

¹⁷ “Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. ¹⁸ But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. ¹⁹ Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.

“But God...”

The genius of the poet is that he says more then he knows.

The same is true for the Bible, and those who speak in it.

Like Peter in today's lesson.

He begins by blaming them for Jesus crucifixion; but he doesn’t belabor it. Blaming doesn’t help anyone!  It doesn’t bring times of refreshment.

Words of a father in a TV story where a boy drowns:

“To blame ourselves is the easy way out.  It was a tragic accident.

It happened.  It doesn’t make any sense.  And to blame ourselves for it happening is to run away from it, and it is to keep life from ever happening to us.”

To blame is to die; to accept the mystery of it is to be open to times of refreshing.

Peter also gives them an excuse as a way out but doesn’t stay with it.  There is no hope in making excuses.  It is a cowards way of blaming.

What we need to dare say is, “I blew it...but God didn’t and God doesn’t!”  God can reverse it!  That brings times of refreshment.