"Worship as Counter-Culture"

Rev. Everett L. Miller

Those challenging words of the Apostle Paul to the Christians in Rome, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,” have echoed throughout the past 20 centuries and still confront us everyday of our lives. There is to be something fundamentally different about a Christian after he or she has been transformed by the renewing of their mind by God. Life just isn’t the same as it was before. Everything, from the words we speak and the way we treat people, to the forgiveness we offer to others and the way we use our talents and our resources have to be looked at through transformed lenses, through the eyes of Christ.

In our modern lives time might be the biggest commodity of all and the most difficult to manage because there is always a fixed amount of it. No matter how hard you try you cannot stretch a day any longer than 24 hours. A pastoral counselor I knew in Austin used to tell the group of students that met with her, “You cannot add anything on to your schedule unless you are willing to take something away. There are only 24 hours in a day. You will never have time unless you make time.” She told us that in regard to Scripture reading, prayer, and meditation. So often our culture sends the message that we are not doing enough. Make sure your kids are in sports, music, tutoring, community service clubs, youth group, etc. Even a lot of retired people are so busy they can’t find time to actually retire. I’m as bad as anyone. Yes I’ll do that and that and that and that. But we can only go on that way for so long, until we are burned out or until we realize that that is not what life is all about. Then we come to realize that Paul’s words, “do not be conformed to this world,” has a great deal to say about viewing our time in a way that is counter to our culture, viewing our time through Christ’s eyes. And at no time is this more important, perhaps, than in Christian worship.

As we have discussed at length as of late, it is the Holy Spirit, which draws us into this life of Christian faith and service even though this life is counter to our culture. At least for my age group, for the people born around the time that I was, and even for my family, it is quite counter-cultural just to be willing to have faith in Jesus Christ and to attempt to live out the Christian life. But it isn’t just this way for today’s young people. It is that way for everyone. To be Christian and to really care about what that means is a counter-cultural act. Sometimes it is even counter to the culture of the church itself. Although there have been times in history when it seemed that everyone in America was a Christian and everyone went to worship on Sundays, I would imagine that even when almost everyone went to church, it was still just as rare to find real Christians. For those who do believe in something it is counter-cultural these days to be willing to say what you believe in. If it cannot be proven, if it cannot be seen, if it cannot be measured, and if we cannot show exclusive video of it on the nightly news, then it is not worth believing in it. It is counter to our culture to put yourself after God and even after others. It is counter to our culture to say, “God what do you want me to be? What do you want me to do?,” instead of saying, “Here is what I am going to be and do and here are the seven steps that will get me there.” It is counter to our culture to be still, to be silent when there is so much to do.

The early Christians were disliked by the Romans for the most part because they were counter to Roman culture. The early Christians didn’t have temples, they wouldn’t offer sacrifices to the gods, they very often refused to serve in the military, and they refused to declare that Caesar is Lord. The early Christians were derided as atheists because they did not believe in the Roman gods and they would not pledge their allegiance to the Roman state. They would not participate in the culture as it was offered to them. They were counter-cultural, but in a very specific way that isn’t concerned about appearances but with the kingdom of God.

At the top of the list of counter-cultural activities by Christians (and really all religious people) is worship. Worship is one of the most counter-cultural acts in which we participate in our lives. This may come as a surprise to many of you who have barely missed a Sunday in sixty or seventy years. Worship is just a part of your lives and maybe it always has been, but if you were to skip church one Sunday and go to restaurants, or the golf courses, or knock on people’s doors during our worship hour, you would begin to believe me when I say that worship is counter to our culture. Our culture does not know what to do with worship.

Two aspects of life that are given a great amount of value in our society are production and individuality. Worship does not produce anything. Worship does not allow us to do whatever we want to as individuals. In fact, worship calls us away from production and away from individuality.

For our Jewish friends from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday is the Sabbath. For religious Jews the Sabbath is not just another day. It’s not even just a day when you go to synagogue worship then do whatever else you want to. It is a day of worship and rest. It is a divinely commanded day of being anti-productive and anti-individualistic. That’s the point for Jews. The Sabbath is counter-cultural. The Sabbath is different. It is a time that is outside of time. The great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel asks the following questions in response to God’s command to keep the Sabbath holy: Is it possible for a human being to do all his work in six days? Does not our work always remain incomplete? What the verse means to convey is: Rest on the Sabbath as if all your work were done.” Now that is a counter-cultural statement about worship and the keeping of holy time.

We, as Gentile Christians, do not tend to keep the Jewish Sabbath. Instead, we worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, which we call the Lord’s Day. We gather on this day to worship because it was on the first day of the week that God raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, inaugurating the new creation. We step out of our extremely important lives of productivity—being farmers and bankers and teachers and mothers—to do something which is in its very essence non-productive. We stop to turn to God’s Word, to sing songs of praise, to pray as a group, to share our joys and concerns with one another, to pray for the world and our neighbors, and to catch up and hug one another in Christ’s name. We set aside our individualities to become a group. It is a weekly re-membering of the body of Christ. Although we are to live every minute of our lives in gratitude for God’s grace and to do every single task we have, no matter how menial it may seem, as though we were doing it for Christ, there is something special about this hour to hour and a half on Sunday mornings. It is a time that we have set aside and dedicated to God.

I remember once in the room with the choir before worship at the Guthrie church. One of the choir members said, “We need to get out there. It’s time for worship to start.” Another one of the choir members who was kind of a cantankerous guy said, “They can wait. They won’t start without us.” Then one of the elders of the church spoke up. “No. It’s not just that we promised them we’d start at 10:45. We set an appointment with God at 10:45.” It is important to set aside time dedicated to God, a time when we have said, “We will not go by the rules of the culture during this hour. We will not worry about productivity. We will not put ourselves first. This is not a time to do, but a time to be with God and one another.” That is why worship is so important. It is a weekly glimpse of what we can be with God’s help. It is a glimpse of what it is like to be dedicated to God and to be a member of God’s community. Then we take the experience we have in worship into our daily lives.

People come to worship for many different reasons. The same is true for people who do not take time to worship. One of the reasons people don’t worship is that they are so busy Monday through Saturday that Sunday is the only day they have to sleep in and to spend time at home. Some people don’t come to worship at traditional churches like ours because there isn’t enough going on. There isn’t anything to keep them interested and engaged. And I can understand both of those. I have to admit to you that although I am your pastor and love being your pastor, I, like you, sometimes have a Sunday when I would rather sleep in or go sit at Starbuck’s and sip on a coffee while reading a good book. Some Sundays I just want to be by myself or be with my family. But that’s why worship is so important. Because it reminds me that my life is not my own, my time is not my own, and that I must be drawn out of myself and into God and the gathered body of Christ.

Some of the older folks at one of the Native American congregations I served that one summer when I was in seminary used to tell me about how when they were little if you didn’t show up for worship you would get a knock on your door while worship was going on. You would open the door to find a couple of the church elders standing there with a tall wooden staff that they’d used to knock on the door. They would firmly remind you that this is worship time and nothing else. Then you would guiltily put your church clothes on and head up to the church building. The elders of that congregation didn’t care whether or not you wanted to worship or felt that you needed to worship because the rest of the congregation needed you there at worship and because if you think you don’t need to worship you are wrong. Can you imagine waking up on a Sunday morning to see Jim Crossland and Dorothy Leaming standing on your front porch carrying staffs asking you what it is that you think you are doing during the worship hour?

In the 2nd Helvetic confession from 16th century Switzerland, which is in our Book of Confessions, it reads: “Meetings for Worship not to be Neglected: As many as spurn such meetings and stay away from them, despise true religion, and are to be urged by the pastors and godly magistrates to abstain from stubbornly absenting themselves from sacred assemblies.” Can you imagine getting a nice greeting card with the pretty picture of the church building on the outside only to open it up and to see a nice note from me urging you “to abstain from stubbornly absenting yourself from sacred assemblies”?

While both of those examples come from different times and different cultures than our own and you don’t have to worry about Jim and Dorothy interrupting your Sunday morning coffee when you decide to play hooky from church and you don’t have to worry every time you open a card from me that you will be called stubborn, they illustrate how important worship is not just for the life of the individual Christian but even more so for the life of the faith community as a whole. You may not feel the need to be here, but the rest of us need you here. As I’ve said, worship is counter to our culture and counter even to what we want to do sometimes. Worship is not about me. That’s hard for all of us to stomach.

I have heard people say that they go to worship to be fed spiritually. While that does make sense in regard to the words of the Psalmist, “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” and in Jesus’ saying that he is the bread of heaven, I am always bothered by it because I think it is incomplete. For some people, and probably for all of us at one time or another, worship is like going to a restaurant where they provide the food and we eat it. We want it to be like the wonderful old Native American ladies in Seminole who would invite me over to eat and absolutely refuse my help in any way. They provided the food. I provided the appetite. Worship is not like that, at least not in the Reformed tradition. The pastor and liturgist are not spiritual restaurateurs and this is not a spiritual super-buffet. Communal worship is more like a pot-luck dinner where everyone brings something to the table and we all enjoy it together, even if the pastor and the liturgist act as waiters. It doesn’t matter what songs we sing, what prayers we pray, or what the sermon says, if everyone in the room is not prepared for worship and is not willing to offer something in the worship of God. If you have a spiritual appetite, remember that everyone else does too, so bring food to share. So I would rather than hear someone say, “I was fed,” say, “We all cooked and we all were fed.”

I saw a story on the news not too long ago about a school program that is teaching kids how to cook healthy meals. The parents weren’t taking the initiative on the diet of their kids so the school did. They tried all kinds of educational programs—speakers, videos, and workbooks. But it wasn’t sinking in. So they recruited local chefs to teach the kids how to pick out the ingredients, how to prepare them, and how to serve them. Then the parents of all the kids in the class came to the school cafeteria for a fancy multi-course dinner all prepared by the kids with the help of their parents. Then after cooking together they all sat down and ate. It was amazing the effect it had on the families. They hadn’t just been fed, they offered themselves and enabled others to be fed as well. So it is with worship. The worst Sundays that I have had as a worship leader have had very little to do with how things went during the worship service. Those Sundays were bad not because there wasn’t enough for me to eat, so to speak, but because I showed up without my dish to share.

Just before Paul writes the words, “Do not be conformed to this world,” he writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Paul is talking about offering your whole life as a worshipful sacrifice to God, as opposed to worship in the Jewish temple, which offered an animal’s death as a worshipful sacrifice to God. This is about a total transformation in your life, Paul is saying. Give everything you have to God, especially yourself. He knows this is a counter-cultural thing to say. But it is necessary, he claims, so that “you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Be who God wants you to be, not who the world wants you to be. Do what God wants you to do, not what the world wants you to do.

I’ve heard it said that we have forgotten that we are human beings and we have become human doings. That is one of the reasons that worship is so important. Because in worship we do not produce anything and we are drawn out of individuality and into community. We catch a glimpse of who we can be with God. It is a scheduled, dedicated, sacred time of being who God wants us to be and doing what God wants us to do, so that we can carry that out into our everyday lives. We praise, we confess, we forgive, we sing, we pray, we listen, we speak, we are generous in giving, we fellowship, and nothing that can be measured or sold comes out of it. We don’t come just to be fed but to share with others. Our culture does not know what to do with worship, and that’s okay as long as we do.

"Who are We that You are Mindful of Us?"

A Biblical Theological Anthropology

Rev. Everett L. Miller

In Psalm 8, David gratefully asks the question of God, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” David knows that the infinite, creative, holy God that he worships does not have to care for him or for any other person. So he asks this rhetorical question as an act of praise and thanks for the fact that God chooses to care for humanity. This is a question that has kept philosophers and theologians and all of us regular folks busy for millennia. Who are we human beings in relation to God?

Well, if you believe in the God of the Scriptures, the first thing you would say about humanity is that on the most basic level, human beings are creations of God. But so are dogs and fleas and grass and trees. We all know there is something different about us, though, or at least there should be. This is what the author of Genesis calls, “the image of God.” In Genesis 1 we read, “ Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them and God blessed them.”

When the Jews lived in exile in Babylon they were surrounded by a religion that had a very different view of where humanity came from. The Babylonians’ creation myth said that two Gods, Marduk and Tiamat fought a war. Marduk killed Tiamat and used her insides to create the heavens and the earth. Then Marduk killed Tiamat’s husband and used his blood to create human beings as slaves to the gods. So the Babylonians believed that humanity came forth from violence and were simply slaves to the gods. The Jews, on the other hand, said that their God created humanity peacefully, with care, with blessing, and even in God’s own image. This is a very different way of looking at things: that human beings weren’t just made to be useful but also to be in relationship with God and one another. David says that human beings have been made “a little lower than God, and crowned…with glory and honor.”

So humanity is created by God in the image of God, which could include all kinds of things like reason, self-awareness, love, creativity, etc. But unfortunately any time we talk about humanity from a Christian perspective, we can’t stop with our being created in the image of God, but we must also talk about the distortion of that image: sin. It is not very popular to talk about sin, or to even use that word, in many circles these days. Even in the circles in which sin is a safe subject to bring up, it is usually only other peoples’ sin that is talked about. But as Paul says about humanity: “There is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Sin is the common condition of humanity.

And sin isn’t just the bad stuff we do, the individual mistakes we make, but the condition of humanity as a whole. In a very real way, if someone does not believe in the reality of sin, then the entire gospel begins to unravel, because if you are not a sinner, you do not need a savior. Sin is a fact. It exists. The Scriptures tell us that when God created humanity, sin wasn’t the original plan, but we human beings, from the very beginnings decided that we could get by on our own, without our loving Creator, in whose image we are all created. The prophet Isaiah puts it this way: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.”

If you recall, last week I mentioned the time in history called the Enlightenment and an idea that went along with it, that of Deism or the belief that God created the world to run on its own then left. Another idea that came out of this time period is that humanity could do well on our own to continue making the world a better place and working toward peace through advances in the sciences. While I think all of us are thankful for things like penicillin and the automobile, this idea that we could do just fine on our own came to be questioned during the 20th Century. Why would that be? Well here are a few reasons: World War I, when the wonderful advances of the human race resulted in the first modern war and the deaths of 15 million human beings created in God’s image. The Nazi Holocaust when well over 6 million Jewish, Catholic, Homosexual, and other people created in the image of God were murdered in the Nazi effort to create a “better” and “more advanced” society. And World War II, the deadliest war ever, when human ingenuity led to the deaths of 55 million human beings created in the image of God. After witnessing the bloodiest century in the history of humankind, even many religiously skeptical people began to realize that when we humans are left to our own devices, tragic events often occur.

Despite the often tragic consequences, we human beings have chosen to go our own way and brought sin into the world. This sin causes separation from God, from one another, from the rest of creation, and even from ourselves through the severing or perverting of these relationships. When we pervert these relationships, no matter what kind of relationship it is, that is sin against God because ultimately all of our relationships, whether with people or things, reflect our relationship with God.

Theologians argue over whether or not sin can be defined as one particular overarching impulse. For many sin can be defined as pride of some sort. Yet, for many others it can be described as a lack belief in their own importance. Both are put in check by God. To the prideful person, God might say, “You only have importance because of me. Get over yourself.” To the person who does not believe in their own importance, God might say, “You are extremely important because of me. I want you and other people need you.” In both of these, God turns us out of ourselves and to God and others. In fact, St. Augustine believed that the Fall and sin were basically a turning in on yourself and away from the other and God. This can happen to individuals, to families, even to churches and communities. Some say that sin is basically selfishness and everything that stems from it.

I have also heard it said that sin is basically the fact that we are prone to do anything to avoid being human, meaning we either try our hardest to be more than human or to be less than human. By more than human I mean that we go after power over other people or creation; we attempt to be self-reliant and to replace God. By less than human I mean that we begin to act like animals by giving into any violent or sexual urge that might hit us.

While I think all of these definitions of sin do a pretty good job of exploring the issue, I also really like the church reformer John Calvin’s idea of sin as well. He says that fundamentally sin is lack of trust in God. This would mean that everything from violence to greed to self-loathing to oppression to racism all goes back to a lack of trust in God. That’s certainly worth thinking about.

So far we know that biblically speaking human beings are creations of God, created in God’s own image to be in relationship with God and one another, and that we are blessed by God. Yet, we also know that we human beings have chosen to go our own way and brought sin into the world. This sin is not just the individual things that we do, but it is the common condition of humanity which has been described in numerous ways such as pride or severed or perverted relationships with God, one another, creation, and ourselves. It has been called a refusal to be human, meaning the constant attempts to be more than human or less than human. It has been described as an underlying lack of trust in God. And it has been described as turning in on yourself or selfishness. This infests not only individuals, but communities, societies, and economic systems.

And if we as human beings are honest about it, we admit that no matter how hard we try there is nothing that we can do about it on our own. As the Apostle Paul wrote of himself in Romans 7: “For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” This isn’t a cop-out, a sort of “the devil made me do it” statement. This is just the realization that no matter how hard you try to escape from sin you can’t do it. And here’s the kicker: nothing can happen to fight against this predicament until you or I or whoever comes to the realization that this is the case.

This brings me back to John Calvin. He spent his entire adult life working on his gigantic two volume theological masterpiece, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. And in the very first sentence of the more than 1,500 pages he writes, “Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” From the very get-go Calvin is saying that if you are going to try to come to know God then you better be prepared to get to know yourself and admit some things about yourself before you can know anything about God.

This process of getting to know ourselves is often not very fun. One of my favorite authors, Frederick Beuchner writes, “The voyage into the self is long and dark and full of peril, but I believe that it is a voyage that all of us will have to make before we are through.” John Calvin puts it this way: “We cannot seriously aspire to [God] before we begin to become displeased with ourselves. For what [person] in all the world would not gladly remain as he [or she] is—what [person] doesn’t remain as he [or she] is—so long as he [or she] does not know himself [or herself].” Let me repeat the first part of that statement: “We cannot seriously aspire to God before we begin to become displeased with ourselves.”

On the very first page of this enormous theological classic, Calvin seems to be saying that each of us must come to grips with the fact that I am a sinner just like everybody else and there is nothing I can do about it on my own. Each of us must come to the point where we say with the Apostle Paul, “Wretched [person] that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” This is the beginning of knowledge about yourself and subsequently knowledge of God. Because as Calvin says, “the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to [God].” This is the theological version of the old psychological truth that you cannot get help for your problem until you admit that you have a problem.

When I was in college, this book, called Life After God by an author named Douglas Coupland was one of my favorite books. I’m not sure why I liked it so much because it is a pretty depressing book about a young man who is leading a kind of pointless and sad existence filled with broken relationships and addictions. Maybe I liked it because at the end of over two hundred pages of these desperately sad and introspective stories, on the next to last page the narrator says this:

Now here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God—that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.”

The narrator of that book seems to have come to the dark, yet freeing realization that “We cannot seriously aspire to [God] before we begin to become displeased with ourselves.”

So who are we human beings? We are creations of God, each and every single one of us all over the world beautifully created in God’s own image to be in relationship with God and with one another. Yet we have chosen to go our own way and subsequently sin is the common condition of humanity. We are sinners, each and every single one of us all over the world and there is nothing that we can do about that fact on our own. As the narrator of Douglas Coupland’s book says, “[we are] sick and can no longer make it alone. [We] need God to help [us] give, because [we] no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help [us] be kind, as [we] no longer seem capable of kindness; to help [us] love, as [we] seem beyond being able to love.” Who are we human beings? We are sinners in need of a Savior. But there is hope. And this hope is the one who has been called “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” This hope is Jesus.

"More than Just a Ticket to Heaven"

Soteriology

Rev. Everett L. Miller

Not long after I moved here, someone from a different church came by to ask me if I knew whether or not I was going to heaven if I was to die today. He didn’t ask me if I was lonely or guilt-ridden or in need of love or of a family of faith. He asked if I was to die would I go to heaven or hell. That turned my stomach, not because I’m unsure of what will happen to me after I die, but because I don’t think that is the question that needs to be asked by Christians. A while after that I was seated next to a person at an event and when she found out that we were from different denominations she said very kindly, “Well, it doesn’t matter what church you go to. It’s all about heaven, isn’t it.” Again, my stomach turned. Just a couple of weeks ago I was in Ponca City and I drove by a church sign that said, “Free Ticket to Heaven. Details Inside.” There went my stomach again. Then around the same time I received a mysterious postcard in the mail that was hand addressed to me and had a Ft. Worth postmark on it. I have no idea who sent it to me but on the back of it in bold were the words: How to Get to Heaven. Then there was a four or five step guide of isolated scripture quotes that showed how that might be achieved. Again, it turned my stomach.

You know, it’s not that the Scriptures don’t mention life after death, because the New Testament anyway, does mention it, but less often than most people think. It’s not that it isn’t a part of Christian faith, because it is. And it’s not that I don’t look forward to being within God’s love in all of its fullness after I die, because I do. It’s just that when I see the church using phrases like “Free Ticket to Heaven” and “How to Get to Heaven” as both the reason for turning to faith in Jesus Christ and the only goal of that faith, as I said earlier my stomach starts to turn because that doesn’t seem to be what is in the Bible and it certainly doesn’t seem to be what Jesus proclaimed. Punching your ticket to heaven? Is that really what salvation is all about?

Seeing as our sources of what salvation is are not always reliable, let us look at what the Bible, which is supposed to be our guide on matters of faith and ethics, says about salvation. In his letter to the Ephesians the Apostle Paul reminds his readers that “by grace you have been 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.” Most Christians agree that you cannot earn salvation from God. Jesus Christ has accomplished the work of salvation. As Paul writes in Romans, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” The Holy Spirit has been at work in your life drawing you toward God, opening your heart to repentance and building up your faith. God has made the offer to you. None of us can gain or win or steal our own salvation from God, it is a gift of grace. But we have to decide whether or not we will accept that gift and live accordingly in gratitude for God’s grace. So it is clear that salvation is a gift from God. But again, what is salvation?

Unfortunately, at least in this part of the country anyway, salvation and going to heaven when you die have become synonymous, and it would seem, all inclusive. Oftentimes Scripture verses are quoted without any context whatsoever. This is sometimes the case with the Psalms. Well, in the Psalms salvation most often means a very literal salvation from death at the hands of an enemy army. Also, in the Old Testament salvation very often refers to God’s salvation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. This is a very literal, practical way of looking at salvation. God has saved me from a very real situation in which I found myself. I have heard people say things like, “God saved me from alcoholism” or “God saved my marriage.” Yes! These are very real ways that God saves us in the here and now, and the here and now is a part of our salvation.

But when we get to the New Testament, salvation begins to take on a different tone. This is one of the big problems that Jesus faced. It seems that many people expected a very literal salvation from the Romans, which Jesus did not provide. In the gospels, however, salvation in connection with Jesus very often means forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God and others, and inclusion in God’s family. Jesus provides rescue not simply from hell, but from isolation from God and others, and from selfishness, materialism, hypocrisy, individualism, and idolatry. When it comes to Jesus if we were to ask what does Jesus say about heaven then the answer would be “not much.” But if we ask what Jesus says about salvation then we could answer, “quite a bit.” As one book I read this week states, “It’s clear that [Jesus’] message was not really about how to get to heaven. It was about a way of transformation in this world and the Kingdom of God on earth.” As Matthew might say, the kingdom of heaven has broken in to our lives here on earth.

Jesus never asks anyone if they know where they will go if they die today. Jesus never offers anyone a free ticket to heaven. Jesus never says it’s all about getting to heaven. Jesus never gives instructions on how to get to heaven. That is not the core of his ministry. In John, the gospel from which we get a lot of our information about the importance of eternal life, Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Jesus is speaking in the present tense. This life which he offers, this eternal life, this abundant life begins now.

When we speak of the salvation offered by Jesus Christ we cannot only talk about Jesus’ teachings, though. We must also talk about the cross, which is the center of our faith as Christians. As Paul writes in Galatians, “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” As Christians we believe that through Jesus, God offered forgiveness of sins and the opportunity to come back into relationship with God. And as Christians we believe that this was achieved most fully through Jesus’ death on the cross. This is the belief that Paul calls, “a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.” This is what people are talking about when they use a statement like, “We are saved by the blood of Jesus.” But again, Jesus didn’t die on the cross just so that we can go to heaven when we die. Jesus died on the cross because as Paul writes, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” The salvation given through the cross starts now, today is the day of salvation.

The Apostle Paul often speaks of this subject by using the phrase, new creation, as in “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old has passed away; see everything has become new!” Then just a little bit after he writes these words in 2 Corinthians he expresses the urgency of the call to become a new creation in Christ when he says, “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” In other words, what are you waiting for? You could experience what it is like to be a new creation in Christ today. Then Paul goes on to list ways in which he and his partners in ministry have lived their lives as new creations in order to help others to come to the same place in their lives. He does not approach his readers with questions of their final, eternal destinies but with questions about what their life is like now and why they delay coming into relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
But in addition to this, we praise God because through Jesus’ resurrection we know that God’s salvation is so all-encompassing that we are not only saved in this life but that not even death can hold back God’s saving love, and there does come a time when we do start to think about what our salvation in Christ means for us after we die. At funerals we focus on those promises of eternal life that are in the Bible, because although it is not the only aspect of salvation or of Christian life, it is surely important, especially when you’ve lost a loved one. Then we do concentrate on passages like in 1 Thessalonians when Paul encourages his readers by saying that we will be with the Lord forever, or 1 Corinthians 15:54-56:
When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"
Or Philippians 1:21-26:
For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.
Is salvation about a better life and a better world now? Yes. Is salvation about being freed into a life of reconciliation and peace and feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the prisoner, and showing overwhelming hospitality to the stranger? Yes. Is salvation about being with God in a new way after we die? Yes. But salvation is not only about any one of these things, but all of them. Salvation is all of these things. Salvation is both now and not yet. But whatever salvation is, it is not just a ticket to heaven. That church might have needed a bigger sign but I wish that that church sign said, “Liberation. Wholeness. Homecoming. Forgiveness. Acceptance. Life Together. Purpose. God’s love that never ends. Details inside.”

"The Handoff"

Acts 1:6-14

Rev. Everett L. Miller

William Willimon, who is a Methodist bishop and the former Dean of the Chapel at Duke Divinity School, tells a funny story that he heard from an Episcopalian friend of his, which he calls Pastor Ed. Pastor Ed tells a story of when he was in seminary. One year on Ascension Day, the dean, the professors and all the students were in the chapel celebrating the Ascension. There was a boys choir singing Deus Ascendit, which means literally “God went up” in Latin, as the procession left the chapel, led by clouds of incense. Unbeknownst to all of the worshippers, one of the more mischievous seminary students had acquired one of those cheap hollow plastic statues of Jesus and put some sort of rocket device in it. As the procession came out of the chapel he lit the fuse and hid in the bushes. The statue shot up out of the shrubs with smoke and sparks, almost hitting some of the people as it ascended up into the air. It finally landed on top of the roof of the dorms and went out. When the dean asked him what in the world he was thinking when he did it he said sarcastically that he simply wanted to dramatize his belief in the reality of the ascension. The ascension was, in some sense, a joke to him. And even though what he did is kind of funny, it shows that the image of the ascension is not one that is always taken seriously.

Within the Presbyterian Church and most other Protestant churches, the Ascension of Jesus Christ, meaning when Jesus ascended to heaven, which we read of today in verses 9-11, is somewhat ignored both in Church doctrine and in the church year. For instance, how many of you knew that this past Thursday was Ascension Day, which is celebrated in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Episcopalian churches as a holy day? I’ve never celebrated it in my life and I had to check my calendar just to verify the date of it. But the ascension is something in which we say we believe every week when in the Apostles’ Creed we say that Jesus “ascended into heaven.” So really, what does the ascension mean to us? Does it inform our faith in Jesus Christ or does it just come across as some strange story of a Mary Poppins Jesus popping open a black umbrella and floating up into the sky?

In our passage today, Luke tells us that “[Jesus] was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” This may seem a little strange to our modern minds, but when we understand Luke’s use of biblical imagery then we begin to comprehend just how important the ascension is for our faith in Jesus. The truth of the matter is that if we get stuck on the fact that Luke tells us that Jesus went up into the sky and how that doesn’t match up with our modern knowledge that heaven isn’t up in the sky because we’ve seen pictures of the earth from outer space, we are missing the point. What Luke is telling us here is that Jesus went to be with God the Father in that realm we call heaven and for a very specific reason. After all, in the Apostles’ Creed we don’t just say “he ascended into heaven” but we add to that “and is seated on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” A divine transition was occuring.

He was taken in a cloud, which again may seem kind of strange to us, but just about any time a cloud is mentioned in the Bible we know that it represents God’s presence. There was a cloud that guided the children of Israel in the wilderness. There was a cloud that enveloped Mt. Sinai when Moses received the Ten Commandments. The prophet Daniel had a vision of the coming Son of Man who would ride upon the clouds. At Jesus’ transfiguration Jesus, Peter, John, and James were also enveloped in a cloud. God was present in a very real way on that day because the ascension is a moment of great significance marking the transition from Jesus’ earthly ministry to when Jesus went to rule as the great priest-king of the universe, ruling, judging, and praying for all of creation.

John Calvin wrote, “(Jesus) truly inaugurated his Kingdom only at his ascension into heaven.” Calvin goes on to say, “he withdrew his bodily presence from our sight not to cease to be present with believers still on their earthly pilgrimage, but to rule heaven and earth with a more immediate power.” Although we probably don’t think about the ascension all that much compared to the crucifixion and the resurrection, Jesus’ ascension to heaven is essential for our salvation. If it had not happened he would not be in a position to claim us as his own. When the world seems like it is crumbling around us, it is good to know that ultimately Jesus Christ is in charge and if it wasn’t for the ascension he wouldn’t be in charge.

But this is all easy for us to say, looking back on that day from 2,000 years later. Surely the day of Jesus’ ascension was bitter-sweet for the disciples. They weren’t surprised that it happened; they knew it was coming. After all, remember what we heard Jesus say last week: “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” A little bit after that he tells the disciples, “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.” But when it does actually happen we don’t really hear of the celebrating or rejoicing. They just kind of stand there, looking up into the sky. I imagine that even though they knew that day was coming that they hoped it never would. It’s like the day when your child graduates and moves out. Even though you’ve known it was coming for eighteen years it still hits you like a ton of bricks. Like a parent standing in the road watching their grown child drive off into the distance, the apostles are staring up into the sky thinking, “Now what?”

As they stand there dumbfounded, two men in white appear to them. This is presumably the two men in white from the empty tomb in Luke’s Gospel. They say, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” These two men seem to be asking them, “There’s work to be done. Why are you just staring up into the sky?”

I have never been able to verify the truth of the story I’m about to tell you, but it makes the point so with that disclaimer I’ll tell it to you anyway. A classmate of mine in seminary told me about the huge, magnificent Mormon temple in Salt Lake City. On top of the towering spires of the temple are beautiful gold angels that reflect the sunlight. People would come from all over the world to see the temple and its golden angels. They would stand below staring up into the sky, backing up more and more trying to get a better angle so that they could see all the way to the top. Many times people would back up so much without paying attention that they would back up right into the busy street and get hit by cars. It happened so often that the Mormon Church ended up buying the street from the city and closing it off so that people could look up at the temple without getting hit by cars.

Again, I don’t know if that is true, but you can see how it makes the point. The disciples in our passage are in danger of becoming like the people who are staring into the sky, not paying attention to anything that is going on around them, like the people who keep backing up and backing up, oblivious to the cars speeding toward them. They have to tell themselves, “Quit staring up at heaven. Look around at what is going on here. Remember what Jesus said just before he ascended. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

So while Jesus has ascended so that as the Westminster Confession claims, he can “receive gifts for [humanity], raise up our affections [there], and to prepare a place for us,” he hasn’t left the disciples without a sense of purpose or without direction. He’s told them that the Holy Spirit is coming who will give them the strength and courage for their mission and he’s told them what that mission is. It is no less than to take the gospel to the entire world starting right where they are. He will no longer be with them. From now on he is going to be working through them. The ascension is, in a matter of speaking, the great handoff from Jesus to the Church.

A book I read this week put it this way: “It’s like the son who has been working in his father’s business and one day the father comes to the store and says, “Son, I’m not going to be coming in as much any more; you can handle things here.” It was a day the son knew was coming, but could he handle it? Could he keep up the things that his father had begun?” So right here in the first chapter of Acts we know that this book is going to be different from the gospels that are placed before it. Jesus isn’t going to be showing up in the flesh anymore. This book isn’t going to be all about what Jesus did when he walked this earth. Instead, this book is going to be about what Jesus did through the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church to spread God’s love and acceptance to the world. The great handoff had occurred.

Standing as descendents of the faith of the apostles, we too have been handed the very mission of Jesus. Encouraged and empowered by our belief that Jesus really did ascend into heaven and that he does sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, as well as our experience with the Holy Spirit, we take on this mission starting right where we are. Although I hope that as many of us who can and who feel led to will get to go to places like New Orleans or the Czech Republic or South America to do mission work, the truth of the matter is that it is right here in Newkirk where we are begin to live out Christ’s mission everyday. The handoff has occured. What will we do with it?

"One Thing I Know"

John 9

Rev. Everett L. Miller

So often when we meditate on the Scriptures, it is easy for us to become bogged down with the many questions that come to mind about a passage, especially a passage this long, to where we actually miss the point. Why would the disciples think sin caused this man’s blindness? What is Jesus saying about sin here? Why in the world did Jesus use spit and mud on the man’s eyes when at other times he didn’t even have to be in the same town as a person to heal them with only his word? Why did Jesus tell him to go wash in a pool? Why do the Pharisees care if Jesus heals someone on the Sabbath? Shouldn’t they just be happy for the man? These are the kinds of questions I require my New Testament students to ask when they write their exegesis papers, and these are the kinds of questions I ask on Monday mornings when I sit down to read the next Sunday’s passage. But although these questions may be important at one time or another, if we tried to explore the answers to them all in one Sunday sermon we would have to hand out sack lunches because we’d miss dinner and we’d probably want to pass out pillows and blankets because not only would the sermon be long, but it would be terribly boring. In a Sunday sermon we have to find one meaning for this particular day and meditate on that meaning.

John’s Gospel, like much of the New Testament is not only concerned with the history of Jesus back then but with experiencing Jesus today. In other words, knowing about Jesus Christ is not the same as knowing Jesus Christ. One of the great criticisms of the traditional Protestant churches like the Presbyterian Church is that we very often replace knowing Christ with knowing about Christ. And it is the importance of the experience of knowing Christ that is the meaning of this passage for us today.

After Jesus puts the mud on the man’s eyes and sends him off to the pool, Jesus goes on his way. And after the man struggles to make his way to the pool and carefully bends down to use his cupped hands to splash water on his face he opens his eyes and he sees for the first time in his life. People are amazed by this and by the man’s answer, that “the man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” His neighbors then take him to the religious experts that they respect so these experts, the Pharisees, can see what has been done. They are going to answer the question of whether or not this is the work of God or the work of a charlatan. The man has already told his neighbors what he experienced, but they want a more educated religious opinion.

The Pharisees begin questioning him and they seem to miss the fact that this is a wonderful day for the man who once was blind but now can see. They don’t even seem to really doubt that Jesus performed this healing. Initially they are more concerned by the fact that Jesus performed it on the Sabbath. The Pharisees are the experts, those with the credentials. Who does this Jesus fellow think he is? He is a sinner, that’s who is. The healed man responds that he thinks he is a prophet.

The young man’s parents are brought in to be questioned. Was he really born blind? Yes. How does he see now? Ask him, they say. So the healed man who was probably out rejoicing in the sights we all take for granted is hauled back in and commanded to tell the truth about Jesus being a sinner. Up to this point nobody seems to be concerned with what the young man has experienced. They want answers, answers that make sense to them. They want him to say that God did it but that Jesus doesn’t have anything to do with that. “Give glory to God!,” they say. “We know this man is a sinner.” Then the young man gives an answer that is one of the greatest one-liners in all of Scripture. If chapter nine was being acted out on a stage I imagine the crowd clapping and laughing when they hear it. “I do not know whether he is a sinner,” the man says. “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

They could ask him all day and all night to interpret what happened to him, to give good theological explanations that are acceptable to the religious experts. They could coax him and coach him and coerce him all they want but he’s having none of it, because the truth of the matter is that he doesn’t know any more than he has told them and as a matter of fact he doesn’t care. “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” He is so happy that he has been healed, that the darkness has been lifted from him by the work of Jesus. He cares more about seeing the clouds move across the sky for the first time or looking into the eyes of his mother and father who have loved him since birth but who he has never seen. His life is changed, transformed, made new. What else matters? “I was blind, now I see.”

But they won’t quit. What did he do? How did he do it? Then the young man gets sarcastic with them. Do you want me to tell you again? You didn’t listen the first time. Why do you want to know? Do you want to become his disciples too? That makes them mad. I really gets them going. “We know a lot of things. We know God has spoken to Moses. But we don’t know who this Jesus guy is.” They are the religious experts and something has happened that doesn’t fit with what they know. So instead of rejoicing in the mystery or changing what they know, they just deny the goodness of what has happened. Then the man shows them up by basically saying, “You know all kinds of stuff. You have all kinds of credentials and knowledge. But now you are stumped. You are the experts yet you just can’t grasp what has happened here. I was blind, now I see. Jesus did this.” So they kick the healed man out, totally discounting his experience.

This man who has been healed has learned a lesson that the religious experts cannot find if they only look in the pages of books. In this passage the Pharisees are really representative of all religious people who allow tradition to nullify experience, instead of allowing tradition and experience to inform one another. Because of his experience, this healed man has become wiser than the highly educated and overly credentialed religious leaders. He may not have a seminary degree and he may not be able to interpret his experience with Christ very well as of yet but as he says, “I don’t know if he is a sinner or not. What I do know is that I was blind but now I see.” In other words, “I was in darkness, now I am in the light and it was Jesus who did it. I can’t quote the Bible to you from memory. I can’t quote great theologians. But my life was in shambles and Jesus turned that around.” His real life experience made him wiser than those considered wise by this world. He has learned through experience that what we learn of the healing love of Christ during times of darkness is of much greater value than what we could learn about it from reading 1,000 books.

Now, we always have to be careful not to lift up experience alone. But let me ask you this: Would you rather have a doctor who just graduated from med school with all A’s or a doctor who earned C’s in med school but who has twenty years of experience treating people with your illness? If you lost your child would you rather talk to someone who has read 20 books about what it is like to lose a child or would you rather talk to someone who lost their own child and has lived with that? Do you want to talk to people who’ve read about cancer or do you want to talk to people who’ve lived with it? Do you want to talk to people wwho have read about what it is like to be an alcoholic or do you want to talk to people who’ve been there.

The Pharisees aren’t interested in the healed man’s experience. They don’t care what the mud felt like on his eyes. They don’t care how much faith it must have taken for him to stumble his way to the pool. They don’t care how that first burst of light caused the man to give glory to God. After all, they’re the experts. They’ll tell him what happened. This Jesus guy sinned by healing you on the Sabbath, if you were in fact blind in the first place. That is what happened to you. They don’t want to hear him say “Again, all I know is I was blind, now I see.”

There is only one of us in this room who has a Master of Divinity degree from a seminary. While proper training to be a pastor is important, if you think that makes me more of a Christian because I may know more about Jesus Christ than you do, you are wrong. Because I’ve spent time with you all and you know Jesus Christ. Everyone in this room has experienced the grace of God many times and in many ways over the years. It could have been a moment when you were unusually aware that Christ was with you through the power of the Spirit. It could have been times when you had no idea but you met a child or a person on the street or you spent time with your friends or family and the grace of God shown through those people. It could have been on a mission trip or church camp or over dinner or in worship. You might have had a dream that comforted you. You may have been so surrounded by the people of God during your time of need that you experienced the body of Christ in a very real way. You might have been what seemed like hopelessly lost in sin and experienced the forgiveness of God. Whatever it was, you may not be able to explain it. You may not be able to quote Scriptures about it. You may not know what John Calvin or Dietrich Bonhoeffer said about it. But you know that before God touched you, things were darker than they were afterward. You know that the way you experienced love and peace before is absolutely dull compared to how you experienced love and peace after experiencing Christ’s presence and healing touch on your life. This happens over and over in our lives. After all, if we never experienced the presence of this Christ that we claim to believe in and we claim to worship I don’t imagine we’d keep showing up here week after week.

When we are touched by an experience of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, whether that comes through healing, through deliverance from addiction or trouble, through worship, or through the everyday interactions of people with one another, we carry that experience with us for the rest of our lives. When we experience the touch of God our eyes are opened to the fullness of life that we could not see before. There is such power in experience. You can share all you know about the Bible or all you know about theology or church history or Presbyterian polity but unless you can share your experience with the grace of God then all of that other stuff doesn’t matter. It is great in helping to interpret your experience and to grow spiritually, but it cannot replace experience. Knowing about Jesus Christ is a poor substitute for knowing Jesus Christ.

The Pharisees in this story come to find this out. Jesus goes to find the healed man and asks him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The young man does not but comes to believe in Jesus while they are talking. Now not only his eyes, but the eyes of his heart have been opened by Jesus. Then Jesus says, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Jesus is no longer talking about 20/20 vision here. Those who cannot see what God is up to are going to see it in the work of Jesus, in the experience of his touch. Those who think they know it all and claim to see when what they should be looking upon is right in front of their faces are in trouble. In fact, Jesus concludes by saying that those who claim to know it all are guilty by the very fact that they claim that. They’d be better off if they were clueless. But because they know about God, but don’t know God their sin remains. With their knowledge, they too must be open to experience.

So beneath all the questions we want to ask about this long passage—Why would the disciples think sin caused this man’s blindness? What is Jesus saying about sin here? Why in the world did Jesus use spit and mud on the man’s eyes? Why did Jesus tell him to go wash in a pool? Why do the Pharisees care if Jesus heals someone on the Sabbath?—and beneath all the questions the Pharisees keep asking the healed man and his parents—How’d you receive your sight? What do you say about him? Was he really born blind? How does he see? What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?—there is, at least for today, a meaning that comes not from a question seeking the certainty of knowledge but from an answer celebrating the mystery of experience. “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight…I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

Ash Wednesday Sermon

"The Most Uncomfortable Day"

Psalm 51 and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Rev. Everett L. Miller

It’s pretty ironic that on a day when we purposely have a cross of ashes marked on our foreheads so that everyone else can see it, our main gospel passage, the words of our Lord Jesus himself are, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Throughout chapter 6 of Matthew, Jesus uses the word “hypocrites” over and over again. Ouch.

When I was in my senior year of seminary I took a course in which we spent an entire semester looking very closely at Jesus’ interactions with other people in the gospels. Once, I wrote a paper about the time when Jesus’ disciples are plucking heads of grain for snacks on the Sabbath and the Pharisees accuse them of breaking the Sabbath commandment. When I received my paper back from my professor he had written a note, I’m not sure if it was a note of appreciation or surprise, saying that through my explanation of the beauty of Sabbath and the possible motives of the Pharisees I had portrayed them as very faithful, pious Jews who were in many ways right in their accusations against Jesus. My professor was used to students railing at the Pharisees as nitpicking legalists. He wasn’t used to students identifying with them.

Later in that same semester I had to write a paper about the actual legal (as opposed to theological) reasons that Jesus was put to death. So I analyzed the accusations made against him by all the different groups. I read over and over the accounts of his makeshift trial before the Sanhedrin and the High Priests. I tried to put myself in Pontius Pilate’s shoes. Then I wrote this long paper about Jesus being killed because the leaders of the Jewish people could not afford for anything to happen that would upset the Romans because then the Romans would come and destroy Jerusalem and kill thousands of Jews, which turned out to be a valid fear as the Romans eventually did do just that about 40 years later. Then I wrote the last sentence of that paper and it was as if it had come from somewhere else, somewhere deeper than usual, because I typed it out and just stared at it with surprise and almost shame. I felt like crying or running away and hiding because I knew that it was true. I had written these words: “I have come to the realization that had I been in their place, I would have killed Jesus too.” Every now and then I pull that paper out of my filing cabinet and just stare at that final sentence.

I am pretty sure that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, when they wrote their gospels did not intend that their readers identify with the Pharisees, Chief Priests, and Pontius Pilate. They seemed to have wanted their readers to identify with the band of ragamuffin disciples who loved Jesus but who just couldn’t get it quite right. I believe that is what they intended. But I also believe that they didn’t intend for there still to be people around 2,000 years later reading their gospel with 2,000 years of religion and tradition heaped on top of the faith they were sharing. Those early Christians who had been cast out of the Jewish religion and who had given up the Roman religion, who had no church buildings but were meeting before dawn in the houses of believers or in the catacombs beneath the city streets, probably weren’t what you could call “religious” people. They were simply people of faith in Jesus. That’s how I imagine them anyway.

So although the early Christians had many challenges that we do not have and we can freely worship and we can afford to have beautiful sanctuaries and stained glass windows and our pastors have begun to wear long flowing robes, we have to come to the realization that so often because of the very advantages that we do have, we have perhaps become more like the Pharisees than like the disciples. When we realize this we find that today’s passage from Matthew 6 isn’t there so that we can cheer on Jesus, clapping along and saying, “Oh yeah, Jesus. They are hypocrites. We don’t want to be like them” because Jesus is actually warning his disciples not to be like us. Jesus is warning us not to be like ourselves. I love how it is paraphrased in The Message, “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.”

Maybe I am telling you something that you don’t agree with or maybe something that you know is true but didn’t want to hear, especially by some guy who isn’t even your own pastor. But if Ash Wednesday is worth anything, it gains its worth from being a day of truth telling. I read an article this week by a Methodist pastor who called Ash Wednesday the most uncomfortable day of the church year. He realized this most fully one year after he had gone through the motion of saying, “From dust you have come and to dust you shall return” and marking the cross of ashes on over a hundred foreheads. While he was doing that his wife had gone to the nursery to get their three year old daughter before she came forward for the imposition of ashes. All of a sudden, after all that “religious” repetition he was standing face to face with his precious three year old daughter and he was placing ashes on her forehead and saying, “From dust you have come and to dust you shall return.” That is when the meaning of the action, that we are all mortal and that we are all sinners who must continually run into the embrace of a gracious God, moved from his head and even his lips down to his heart. He looked at his smiling and somewhat confused toddler of a daughter with a cross of soot on the same forehead he kissed every night and he had the same realization I’d had when I realized I would have killed Jesus too: This is uncomfortable but it is the truth.

So if Jesus warns us to, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them,” what are we doing here tonight getting ready to line up to do just that? You may be asking yourself, should I get the ashes or not? Well, that depends on your motives. If we are here because we want people to know that we are so pious that we even showed up at the Ash Wednesday service, or if we are here because we want the ashes on our foreheads so we can go to the grocery store afterwards or drive down to Ponca City to eat at Chili’s and have everyone see how pious we are, then we are here for the wrong reasons and we probably ought to stay seated when the time comes to have the ashes placed on our foreheads. Because, you see, the key to understanding Jesus’ strong statement is the second half of the sentence, “in order to be seen by them.” He doesn’t say that we should never practice our piety in front of others. But he does say we better not do it simply to draw attention to ourselves. If you have come here to have ashes on your head in order to be seen by others you are wasting your time.

But if you have come because even though you might not fully understand what this imposition of ashes thing is all about but you know that you are a sinner in need of God’s help then please by all means be strengthened in your faith by receiving the imposition of the ashes. But as we take part in this religious ritual, let us remember that religion is only valuable insofar as it helps to build our faith and enables us to live it out in the world. Religion for its own sake is the enemy of faith. This is the message of King David in Psalm 51 when he prays, “For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Then just a few verses later, though, when you might expect him to vow to never make a religious sacrifice again he says to God, “You will delight in right sacrifices.”

Jesus teaches something very similar to David’s words in Matthew 5 when he says, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that [someone] has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to [that person]; then come offer your gift.” He doesn’t say that the religious ritual should be totally avoided but he does say that it doesn’t matter what you do with your hands if it isn’t coming from your heart. So in Matthew 6 Jesus doesn’t say don’t give to the poor. Actually he tells at least one person in the gospels to give everything to the poor. But here he says don’t give to the poor so everyone else can see you. He doesn’t say don’t pray. He says don’t pray just so everyone can hear you praying. He doesn’t say don’t ask God for forgiveness. He says don’t pray for forgiveness if you are not willing to forgive. And he doesn’t tell his disciples not to fast. But he does say don’t fast and then go around telling people all about how you are fasting. This is what the hypocrites do, he says.

But although in the gospels Jesus uses the Pharisees, among other groups of people, as examples of religious hypocrites, don’t fool yourselves. The Pharisees do not have a monopoly on participating in religious ritual for the wrong reasons. The Pharisees don’t do anything that we Christians do not do on a regular basis. I don’t think that Jesus was against the Pharisees because they were Pharisees but because some of them, like many of us Christians, were more concerned about appearances and religion than faith in God and love for God and others.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the season of Lent, and Lent is a time of soul searching. It is a time when like a ship that is taking on water we begin to throw overboard anything that is not essential for the journey. It is a time when we realize that returning to dust is as far as I can go on my own. It is, perhaps, the most uncomfortable day of the church year, because it is a day of truth telling, of telling the truth about our own mortality, our own sinfulness, our own religious hypocrisy and showmanship. But the truth must be told before the journey can continue because as our Lord Jesus said himself, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

"Wonderful Words of Life"

Matthew 4:1-4

Rev. Everett L. Miller

This being the first Sunday of the New Year, it is a time when a lot of us make resolutions for how we will change our lives for the better this year. Sometimes we are very specific, such as, “I will read one book each month” or “I will workout three times a week,” or “I will stop smoking by February 15.” More often, we make vague commitments to some sort of general improvements in our lives. “I’ll eat healthier this year.” “I’m going to treat people better.” “I will spend more time with my friends.”

If you are anything like me, when the end of the year finally comes and I’ve survived Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s with all of the parties, meetings, and end of the year reports, not to mention the advertising blitz around Christmas, you are so frazzled that all you want to do is to get back to the basics. “I’m going to grow in my faith. I’m going to enjoy my family. I’m going to just work hard for my living.” The New Year is a good time to get back to the basics of life.

When I was thinking about what I would preach on at the beginning of 2008, I thought about this idea of getting back to the basics. Maybe I should preach about the basics of faith, of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, kind of a confirmation class refresher for all of us. So we will get back to the basics, the foundations of faith. Over the next couple of months we will cover such topics as Holy Scripture, Who is God?, and What is the Church? And many more. So let’s get back to the basics.

This past Thursday morning I was all alone in our sanctuary, and I sat down in the first pew. As a break from the busy day, I decided to sit for ten minutes in silence. At first all kinds of thoughts came to mind: the dried poinsettia leaves on the carpet, the e-mail I’d forgotten to send to a colleague. Then after three or four minutes my mind had quieted and I was just sitting there, being. All morning I’d been thinking about how I was so frazzled and stressed. The bad thing about taking vacation is that while you are gone little elves don’t break into your office and do all of your work for you. It is always waiting for you when you get back. So I had four days of work to complete in less than two days. I had presbytery business which I needed to finish and Sunday worship to plan. To top it off my office is so messy and disorganized that I can’t find anything when I need it. Everybody has gone on vacation and come back to that. Surely you’ve had one of those days when you feel like you are being drawn and quartered by all the different directions you are being pulled.

As I was sitting in the silence, the scripture passage I had been reading earlier in the day in preparation for this Sunday’s sermon came to mind, Jesus’ response to Satan’s first temptation in the desert. “Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” I said that over and over again as I breathed in and out. Then I realized that I was so frazzled not necessarily because I had a lot to do, but because I was living “on bread alone.” I’d been on vacation for over a week, and I hadn’t kept up on my praying and scripture reading like I should. I rested but I guess you could say that I didn’t recharge. I was just living on the surface, so when I returned to the church office I just kept on going that way. I was living on bread alone, meaning that I was not gaining my strength from God. Do you ever find yourself trying to live on bread alone?

It is inevitable. When I live on bread alone my life gets out of whack. And one of the ways that I have tried to re-center myself when my life gets out of whack, is to hike. I’ve only had the opportunity a couple of times but I like to hike the trails at the Chaplin Nature Center just west of Arkansas City. There is something about being out in the woods all by myself, listening to the wind blowing through the trees, feeling the sun on my face as it peeks through. I feel relaxed and happy. I feel close to the earth and in a way I feel close to God as though God and I have finally been able to slip away from the crowds to take a walk together. There is a sacredness to my hikes. Some of you may have had that type of experience at the beach or in the mountains. But although those hikes tend to help immensely, usually what I need when the edges begin to fray is sitting on a bookshelf collecting dust.

I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon or the Himalayas or Angel Falls, but I’ve seen enough of nature to know that a person can come away from the majesty of nature with at least an idea that there must be a God and that this God must be good and wise and powerful. But no matter how sacred my hikes seem to be, they are not enough to give the knowledge of God that is really needed, the knowledge of God that Jesus was referring to when he said that we should live “by every word that comes from God’s mouth.”

A few hundred years ago, the folks who wrote the Westminster Confession called this the “knowledge of God and God’s will that is necessary for salvation.” In other words, the general revelation of God in creation, as beautiful and sacred as it is, or really any aspect of life as a whole, needs to be informed and transformed by something more specific: the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, the unique and authoritative witness to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To look only to creation without looking to the scriptures in a quest to learn about and encounter God is living only on the surface. It is like living on bread alone.

If you think that a sunrise over the Smoky Mountains or a sunset in the desert is stunning, try looking at it again after reading in the scriptures that the One who created that sunrise and sunset also created you and loves you. It takes the beauty of that moment to a whole new level. God’s self-revelation in creation may be able to bring us to awe, but it won’t bring us into relationship with our creator. Maybe that is why my hikes seem so sacred, because I look at the woods through the lens of the Bible. I walk through the forest in relationship with the One who formed the universe. I guess that is one way to describe a Christian: someone who walks through the forest of life in relationship with the One who formed the universe. And the way we come into that relationship is through encountering God in the Scriptures. The Bible is not just an accessory to Christian faith. It is absolutely essential.

This Tuesday I am going to start teaching an undergraduate class, Introduction to the New Testament, at Southwestern College, which is a Methodist college in Winfield. The other day I had coffee with head of the Philosophy and Religion Department. I asked if I should assume that all of the students in the class are Christians. He looked at the class roster and said, “I’m pretty sure they are all Christians.” Then just a couple of minutes later I asked for advice in my preparations and teaching. He said, “You should also assume that they no almost nothing about the Bible.” In my mind I thought, “Christians who know almost nothing about the Bible?” After getting over the initial shock I thought about how wonderful it will be to help these students encounter God’s Word and to help them realize that they may have been trying to live on bread alone. Hopefully they will come to see that life can be so much better than that. But surely many of them will come to class on the first day wondering, “Why is the Bible so important?”

As followers of Jesus Christ, we go to the scriptures because the Bible is where we learn of our Lord, of his teachings, his death on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead. It is the Word through which the Holy Spirit teaches us what to believe and how to live. But if any of those students become convinced of scripture’s power to transform I will not be able to take the credit for that. It will have been the Holy Spirit working in their hearts. Those students, just like all of us, must be open to the Holy Spirit working in our lives through scripture, which as I will say on the first day of class, begins with our opening the Bible. The Bible isn’t just important; it is essential for the person of faith. It does not merely inform us like a history book or an encyclopedia, but God uses it to transform us. When we let God in, the scriptures are not just a book but a place where we meet God.

So as Christians, whether we have been a Christian for eighty-five years or if we just came to faith this morning, we can’t neglect the Bible, thinking that hearing the preacher’s sermon on Sunday is enough. As I have found many times, and most recently this past week after I returned from vacation and found myself sitting in that front pew for ten minutes, it is pretty safe to say that the Holy Spirit won’t work through the Bible if it is collecting dust on a shelf all the time. Instead, we must turn to the scriptures, prayerfully asking the Spirit to open us up to God’s transforming work, working through those ancient words to conform us not to the expectations of our culture but to the likeness of Christ Jesus. We do this both as individuals in personal devotional time and in communities like informal study groups or church bible studies or in Sunday School.

This is a new year, a time for getting back to the basics. It is a time to decide that when the world and your busy life tries to keep you living on the surface, that you will respond, both in word and action, with “I do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The New Year is a time to decide that this will be the year when you experience God’s wonderful words of life.

Amen.