God's Love Will Have the Final Word

Mark 13:1-8

November 15, 2015

The temple that Jesus was sitting

in front of was impressive.

Herod’s temple was an extension of the one

that was already there.

It took nearly 100 years to build the addition.

It took 10 thousand laborers

the stones were between 1 and 100 tons.

Most of them were 10 tons each.

The temple was supposed to be built

for the glory of God, but of course,

it was also built to show the glory of King

Herod and his kingdom and the religious

institution that was supposed to be at the

head of their entire society.

The might and strength of the structure was intimidating.

Might and strength are impressive to us.

The illusion of permanence is  

tempting to us.

We like to think that some things 

will last forever.

Things that humans create like buildings 

and cities and societies and religion

We can sometimes confuse the strength

of human made things with God.

The disciples were taken with the large stones and the impressive structure 

of the temple.

But the temple was not permanent.

Around the year 70, 

the Roman army came in

to Jerusalem to put an end to the ongoing

Jewish insurrections against their leadership,

they meant to take over the temple

and make it a temple to one of their gods,

but in the midst of the battle,

someone set the beams inside the temple on fire

since it seemed like a loss, they

broke the stone to steal the gold gilding out of it.

The impressive temple that took hundreds of years to build,

only took about a week to destroy.

In that event, it’s estimate that The Roman Army

killed 600,000 Jews.

The rest they threw out of Jerusalem.

Terror has been part of our world for a long time.

humans killing humans has been a part of our reality

since Cain killed Abel it’s a foundational

event of our existence.

Even then, we knew it wasn’t right, but still it goes on.

Again, we’re here after a week

of shocking violence.

Bombings in Lebanon, in Baghdad

 the crash of a Russian plane

that looks like a bombing, and Friday,

in Paris, a coordinated attack in several places

that killed over 120 people.

First we have the horror of seeing

the fear and pain on people

watching them run in fear and cry in agony.
And then we have the worry about

where this new development will lead us next.

  

Whether it’s a terrorist act or an individual

mass shooter, the reality of violence and death

seems like it’s still all around us today.

In a rush to react, we could easily lose our way.

In the gospel

Jesus warns his disciples and us that as we’re waiting,

we will see these kind of things and we will hear

about wars and rumors of wars and other scary things,

But he tells us that we shouldn’t be led astray.

On one level these apocalyptic texts might not

 seem very comforting at a time like this,

They remind us that nothing will last forever,

this world that we love,

the people the buildings,

institutions, relationships, nothing will last forever.

Life is uncertain.

Everything, even the strongest thing, is temporary.

But in some ways this gospel is comforting.

It helps us to put things in perspective.

They remind us that the world has

been shaken before and here we still are.

And it reminds us that even when

these awful events happen,

people of faith need to keep our heads.

The temptation then is the temptation now,

Like Jesus says, people will come,

many of them in Jesus name,

and tell us that it’s the end of the world

as we know it.

But as Jesus says, it’s not the end.

These times may be difficult,

but it’s not an end, it’s a beginning.

Jesus tells us to see these pains as birth pains.

The time of pain that comes before  joy.

Jesus tells us that these wars  and violence

will not be the end, because wars

and violence and tragedy will not

have the last word.

The world would like us to all lose our heads.

War mongers would like us to be angry

and demand more violence and retaliation.

Hate groups would like us to lump all Muslims

and refugees together and blame them for this.

The TV news would like us to keep watching

obsessively in fear for the next tragedy.

The devil would like for us to

give up in despair, to lose hope in humanity,

lose hope in peace, lose hope in hope

But Jesus asks us to keep things in perspective

and not to let us get caught up in hype or despair.

And so I tell you this:

Although it doesn’t seem like the case after

the past couple of weeks especially,

Actually, right now we’re living in 

one of the most peaceful times in the world’s history,

Look it up, it was in the Wall Street Journal

about four years ago. 

(here's the article)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904106704576583203589408180

Violent crimes are falling in every country,

Even in places like Mexico 

that we think of as out of control the murder rate was almost

 ¼ of what it was in 1940.

There are less wars between countries,

less civil war, less personal violence.

I’ll read you the beginning of the article

so you know I’m not making it up myself:

It's impossible to learn about these catastrophes without thinking, 

"What is the world coming to?"

But a better question may be,

"How bad was the world in the past?"

Believe it or not, the world of the past was much worse. Violence has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living in the most peaceable

era in the existence of our species.

The decline, to be sure, has not been smooth. It has not brought violence down to zero, and it is not guaranteed to continue. But it is a persistent historical development, visible on scales from millennia to years.

Just in the last 60 years, deaths from

violent crime, brutality, and war have fallen significantly.

The difference is, we now we hear about every

tragedy, as its happening, not days or weeks or

even months or years later like we would have

back in the old dark ages of 1995 and before.

We see video and pictures as it’s happening

we hear stories, like we’re there,

we see videos, we are emotionally

invested and involved in these acts,

not just distantly removed,

reading about the statistics later.

There is less of it,

but it hurts more now that we see it in front of us.

And thank God for that.

And as humans are horrified by the reality of violence.

Rightfully so.

We’re getting to think that it doesn’t have to be like this. 

We are growing more empathetic to other people

even people of other nations.

As a human race, we are beginning not to tolerate this.

We’re not in agreement about what should be done,

or how to stop it, but we’re all in agreement that

these incidents are tragedies shouldn’t be happening.

If we can see through the tragedies, and our sorrow

we have to see, God is doing something here.

And even in the midst of horrible events,

we see signs of hope and openness and people’s

desire to help.

On Friday night the people of Paris

were tweeting out on social media “portouverte”

which means “open door”, meaning

they were offering their little bitty Paris apartments

for random people to stay if

they couldn’t get to their homes.

People weren’t shutting themselves off in the face

of terror, people were opening themselves up.

Strangers opening their doors to strangers.

God is doing something here.

Even with these of horrible, terrible, meaningless violence, 

something wonderful is being born.

We might be in the middle of birth pains now,

but something is being born here.

It might not be born in any of our lifetimes,

but I have hope that God is doing something here.

As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote

in a time so filled with violence and hatred:

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Jesus reminds us that

As long as we’re on this side of the kingdom,

our lives will be filled with beginnings and endings.

things dying and things being born again.

This is one of the lessons of the cross

Another lesson of the cross is that pain and death

and violence, will not have the last word.

It cannot have the last word

because God will have the last word.

And our faith doesn’t lie in big stones,

or military might, or institutions,

or political savvy.

it lies in the eternal love of God  

The love of God is not based on

our strength or the size of the stones or weapons

we can use to keep us safe,

The love of God is not based on our security or

success in anything.

The love of God is based only on the love of God.

It is the Alpha and the Omega,

the generator of the universe, it will be forever

God’s love will have the final word.

Love Until it Hurts

Mark 12:38-44

November 8, 2015

Two small copper coins that added up to a penny.

So this story is usually a good start for a stewardship sermon

The widow gave a little bit, but she gave “more”

because she had less money to begin with.

So if you have less money like the widow,

keep giving the little bit, don’t worry about it.

But if you have “more” money and you want to be

like that widow, then give even more money to the church,

And it will count as more.

It’s all about money, amounts of money, percentages of money.

Be like the widow be acceptable to Jesus

and give a large percentage of your money to our church.

Right? Someone in some church is giving that sermon right now.
If you’re quiet you can hear it.

Now there’s nothing wrong with that sermon really.

I do think this lesson that Jesus is teaching

is about giving, and faith and stewardship,

but maybe Jesus is not only talking about money.

I think there’s more.

Jesus is sitting with the disciples and watching

people put money into the treasury

people would put their offerings into large

metal urns that were small at the top and large at the bottom.

The only money was coins in that time

there were no check books or automatic transfers

so you could easily hear the difference between

a large contribution and a small contribution.

The large ones made a racket and no doubt

the people who gave them were happy to

make that racket and have everyone else hear.

  

The more you gave the better you were seen

in the eyes of the temple and the community.

And supposedly in the eyes of God.

Now, the people who gave large sums of money

may have actually been giving the same percentage

of their income as the widow gave.

We don’t know.

But I think the difference with the people

who gave out of their wealth and

the widow who gave out of her poverty

is that the widow actually felt it.

It made a difference in her life.

If she gave two coins,

that was money that she would have used

for food, rent, heat, bus fare.

She’s got no savings, no extra at the end of the month.

She gave that and she felt that loss.

The ones who gave larger sums that were a small portion

of what they had, it didn’t really make a difference to their life

they might have given a lot, they may have tithed,

but they still had enough for all their necessities

and probably some savings, movie nights,

new furniture when the mood struck,

and maybe even a week’s vacation at the Dead Sea.

They gave more money to the treasury,

it made more of an impact,

But they didn’t necessarily feel it

it didn’t make a difference in their lives.

  

A professor at Trinity tells the story of

baptism in the first century.

People were devoting themselves to Christianity

and getting baptized, washing their sins and

starting to live a new life.

But soldiers in the Roman army

would go into the waters of baptism and hold their

hand up outside the water because

that was the hand that would hold their sword

when they went into battle.

The habit of humans when dealing with God

and faith and religion is that people

feel drawn to it, but then we try to

to isolate it into a little corner of our lives

where it will do the least amount of harm

where it will cost us the least.

We say, okay, we’ll give up an hour of our lives

on an occasional Sunday but that’s it.

Don’t let my faith interfere with the way that I am already

conducting my life.

Don’t let it bother my schedule, my sports, my free time.

don’t let it change my opinion

don’t let it force me to make choices,

Don’t make me feel guilty,

Don’t challenge my convictions,

I don’t want to give up anything or change anything in my life.

I don’t want to be disturbed.

I don’t want to offend my friends.

I don’t want to have to choose between God’s way and my way.

Basically, let me keep God over here

and my life over here.

I don’t want to feel it.

If Jesus’s lesson is  only about giving the 

right amount or percentage of money to the church,

then the middle class and wealthy in our midst have it easy.

We get a free ride. All we have to do is write a check.

Even if it’s a big check, it probably all sort out next month.

So it’s not just about giving money.

It’s about giving ourselves.

If we’re doing this Jesus thing and we’re not feeling it

we’re doing it the wrong way.

- If we’re doing this church thing and we’re not feeling

uncomfortable at times, we’re not doing it right.

- if we’re following Jesus and hoping that he will just

take all our pain away and leave us happy and peaceful,

we’re not digging into the story of Jesus far enough.

-If we’re doing this and it’s not an inconvenience to our lives

there is something wrong with it.

The story of Jesus is s story of

God who loved us so much that

he would die for us.

Jesus shows us that love is not puppies and kittens,

or rainbows and unicorns.

There is joy, but love is often pain, sadness, struggle,

change, compromise, and love sometimes even involves blood.

The story of Jesus is not about skating by as easily as possible.

The story of Jesus is about loving until it hurts.

Maybe giving up money is what hurts the most for you.

Maybe it’s time, commitment, closeness,

vulnerability, forgiveness, control,

where is your poverty that God wants you to give out of?

  

That day in the temple,

the widow gave her last two coins.

I can guarantee that no one noticed the

quiet sound of them going into the treasury.

Not the rich people who had big, noisy bags of money to give.

Not the Pharisees who were too busy showing off their

long robes and making up their long prayers.

But Jesus noticed. Jesus noticed the smallest offering.

And the good news is,

And God notices our gifts too.

God knows and cares about our struggles, our worries,

God notices the little that we give that are hard for us to give.

Those little ways that we try to live out our baptismal calling.

God is with us on our journey of faith.

Even if those gifts are as small as two little coins.

Jesus notices them.

Whether we’re rich or poor.

We are not alone in our struggles here.

The good news is that God loves us until it hurts.

Reformation

John 8: 31-36

10-25-15

Reformation Sunday

Today we remember the day Martin Luther

nailed the 95 thesis up to the door of Wittenberg.

You won’t see this celebration in other denominations of churches.

Methodist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, churches.

Just really Lutheran churches and some other stray protestant Churches

but certainly was one of the most important event in world history.

If you don’t know it yet by heart,

When Martin Luther was an Catholic, Augustinian Monk

he was told what the church taught throughout the ages:

that the less he sinned, the more he prayed and went to mass

the more he followed the traditions of the church,

the closer he would be to God and Jesus.

But the truth is, Martin Luther said that during his time as a monk,

Even with most of his time spent in worship and prayer -

he felt the opposite.

The more he prayed, the further away from Jesus he felt.

He said it was a time of deep spiritual despair.

He said, “I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter,

and made of him the jailor and hangman of my poor soul."

Other people felt the same thing about God and Jesus for sure.

The church was causing people to be afraid of God instead of love God.

This feeling hung on for Luther

And then when the Roman Catholic church started to collect indulgences

for the building of St. Peters,

with a threat of Purgatory for people who didn’t give,

Luther started to feel that instead of

something not being right in his head or with God,

maybe it was not right with the church.

  

And when he was reading Paul’s letter to the Romans

he realized what it was, the truth of the gospel of Jesus:

since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 

they are now justified by his grace as a gift,

through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

The Gospel said “We all sin, and we all are saved by God’s grace alone.”

It was the church’s teaching that were wrong.

So Martin Luther outlined 95 grievances he had with the church

places where he thought the church went against the gospel.

And he nailed them to the door

of the Wittenberg Church on October 31^st, 1517.

So today on the nearest Sunday,

We celebrate the Reformation.

But today, and every Reformation day,

we need to remember that we don’t worship Martin Luther.

And we don’t just celebrate one moment in history

and we don’t need to cling forever to the

German roots of our denomination.

Today we celebrate the Reformation.

The Reformation means that

the human institution that holds

holds the gospel in its hands, can be changed.

It needs to be changed, in order to keep up

with God’s spirit and the wonderful things God is doing in the world.

  

The Reformation means that

The church is something that can be questioned

and challenged. It’s not infallible,

you don’t have to check your brain at the door

and listen to everything that one person says or thinks is right.

The reformation means that God’s spirit

and the truth of the gospel of Jesus

will never be stopped by

corruption, or greed, or our own fear or indecision.

God’s Spirit is always finding new ways to

reach and inspire people,

whether that is in a church or on a computer

or around a table at someone’s house.

The Spirit of God will not be stopped.

The reformation means that

the inspiration of even one person can

start a movement and create change.

And what the Reformation really means is that

You can tell your children and grandchildren

and neighbor and the stranger you meet on a bus

that no matter where they go

no matter what they do, or what decisions they make,

God will love them forever.

The Reformation means that

We can tell everyone that God loves them.

Even someone who spent his youth

on drugs and doing bad things

and going to jail.

Even someone accused of murder.

Even someone who has never been to church.

  

Because of the Reformation,

We can tell this man , or woman.

and we can tell ourselves that

God has picked them as God’s child,

God has forgiven them,

God loves them,

and God will welcome them home when the time comes.

When we celebrate Reformation

we’re not celebrating a monk with a hammer,

We are celebrating the gospel of Jesus

that was covered up by years of

human law and power and tradition

and was then revealed and set free on the world,

When we celebrate the Reformation,

we’re celebrating how the Spirit changes us,

reforms us, renews us and gives us new life in every age.

The Reformation means that  

this Sunday and every Sunday,

we celebrate Jesus crucified and risen again.

we celebrate God’s power, grace, and love.

Less is More

Mark 10:35-45

October 18, 2015

Henri Nouwen who was a wonderful

priest and author wrote a very wise thing

"The long painful history of the church

is the history of people ever and again tempted

to choose power over love, control over the cross,

being the leader over being led by God."

This has been the churches temptation

and the people of Christ have given into it:

the Spanish Inquisition,

Early Calvinism, burning people at the stake,

even Luther gave into this temptation

when he was asked what to do about

the peasant uprising

in order to support his own theological

premise of the two kingdoms,

told the governers that they had the

right and even the obligation to kill

those peasants. And they did.

He chose control over the cross.

Power over love.

There are endless examples.

And this was James and John’s temptation too.

Jesus has just told the disciples that he’s going to be

arrested, tortured and killed by the authorities.

And still James and John, the Sons of Thunder

come up to Jesus and ask him

if Jesus can promise them the corner

office and the best parking spaces in heaven.

 It might seem like a small, harmless request,

but that’s how these temptations work.

The devil would love nothing more

than if we kept everything we had and earned

for ourselves, if we hoarded every bit of

power, and success, and money and

surrounded ourselvse with it, bragged about it

and lorded it over everyone else to get our way.

We know many people who give into that temptation.

But the gospel requires that we let go of things.

Last week, the rich man was told to let go of

his possessions and give them away,

we’re told to give up our

grudges and choose forgiveness,

and this week the gospel asks us to

give up our place on the ladder of success

for the good of others.

The greatest temptation for every leader,

especially leaders who work for the public good

and for the oppressed

is the temptation to only

work for their own success and comfort.

At some point in any great leader’s life,

The establishment always offers something

that is hard to refuse.

Just like Jesus was tempted in the wilderness

they are offered that high paying job,

the safety of them and their family,

the promise of temporary riches.

  

In 1962, at a particularly stressful

and hopeless time early in the civil rights

movement, Martin Luther King

was offered a job as Chief Empresario

and around the world lecturer

for the Sol Hurok agency,

a kind of world wide talent agency.

He was guaranteed a salary of $100,000,

still alot of money today.

After threats to his family, time in jail

and the long road ahead, I’m sure this

was very tempting to him.

It’s said he thought for a long time

about it, but he obviously refused and

recommitted to the movement he was called to.

The devil would love it if he took that path.

Others in the movement probably took that path.

But Jesus says that’s not the way

the way to real greatness is to be a servant to others.

The real path to power

is to get power and to give it away.

Some Christians are uncomfortable

with the concept of power.

We have interpreted Jesus words

to mean that we should never strive to be the best,

never achieve, never be better than anyone else

that we should be the world’s doormat.

But this is not useful for the Kingdom.

Power is a gift to us, it is an opportunity.

Power is a useful thing.

We’re not asked to shirk it off or refuse it.
We’re asked to take it and use it – for the good of others.

When we think of Mother Theresa,

we mostly think of her in the streets and slums

working with the poorest people in India.

But Mother Theresa was a very powerful woman too.

When she needed more funding for her causes,

she would get on a plane, fly first class,

assemble a meeting of high powered CEO’s

and executives and sit down in a chair,

look them in th eye and tell them

“I need your money to do my work.“

And when they would offer her some

she would say,“No, that’s not enough. I’ll wait.“

That’s no door mat.

That’s power. but it’s power for the sake of others.

As Christians, we don’t need to under-achieve.

We don’t need to be door mats.

If it’s in your heart and personality,

rise to the top of your profession

Be the best you can, be the supervisor,

the principal, the district president.

But our greatness is found when we use

that power to make sure the employees

who work for you are being treated respectfully

and clients are being treated well.

Christians can be elected officials

But their real greatness is found when they

use their power for the good of

all people, even those who can’t vote

like homeless people or people who have been in prison.

Christians can make a lot of money,

But our real riches are found when we

don’t just keep all that for ourselves.

but when we use it to set people free.

And as a church, we can be great and big and strong

and full of people and have lots of power and influence

But our greatness as a church is only found when

we use that power and influence for others

to speak up against injustice, violence, war

and all those things that oppress the least among us.

Real power is found in giving our power away.

I love what’s happening to Mark Zuckerberg,

the young man who invented Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook,
visits prisoners at San Quentin Prison

At first he kind of seemed like this selfish, smarmy kid

who was just going to use his sudden wealth for his own purposes.

But that’s been changing,

I just read a new story that 

said that he read the book

“the New Jim Crow” a book about

how the war on drugs 

and our nation’s prison system

has replaced racial segregation 

in this country.

Now he says he’s using his voice and power

to work for prison reform in the US.

Kind of like Bill Gates, the richest man in the world,

who about 20 years ago said that he felt no need to

give any of his money away,

now, he’s kind of his own World Health Organization,

using his power for the good of millions of people.

Or Warren Buffett the billionaire who started

to challenge other billionaires to give away

half of their riches to worthy organizations.

It’s like these people get to a certain

outrageous point of wealth and they go, Is that all there is?

I have everything I could ever want, now what?

They may not even be Christians,

but they really understand the

paradox that Jesus gives us here:

To be great, serve others.

The way to get more is to give it away.

Or as we’re focusing on in our worship:
Less is more.

The more we give away, the more we have.

The more we give away our power,

the stronger we grow.

The more money we give away, the richer we really are.

Not necessarily monetarily,

but in those ways that can’t be counted.

Less is more.

We follow someone who could have had

all the power in the world,

who could have lived in palaces,

who could have lived a pleasant life

with riches and comfort and personal, inner peace.

But instead he used his power for the good of others,

he used his power to heal, to forgive,

to set captives like us free from ourselves

and the prisons we make.

Jesus could have had anything in the world,

but he gave his whole life for us.

God gave God’s whole self away.
And God gets all the glory.

Let’s pray: God help us to be the best we can be.
And help us to use what we have in service to you

and in service to others.