Sermon - Faith Through Living (Lent 4B)

Lent 4B – March 11, 2018                                                 Panzer Liturgical Service

Number 21:4-9 & John 3:14-21                                Faith Through Living... Orthopraxy

When was the last time you heard a good sermon from Numbers? Any sermon at all? OK, not today either, but it is important to hear a little something because Jesus prefaces this section of his conversation with Nicodemus.

Last week we talked a little bit about the 10 Commandments. It opened up a little window into what the former slaves of Israel were like. They were complainers. I can just imagine the conversations floating around the camp. “Moses has been gone too long. These commandments are not specific enough. Eating this manna every day is so boring… did God lose his password to Pinterest? Blah, blah, blah… “And so, from this story, it looks like they needed an attitude readjustment.

Now I’m not a big believer in God making bad things happen to people to teach important lessons. I think that enough bad things occur on their own to more than make the point. But part of this story is that the Israelites didn’t experience God as a comforting presence among them. So, when the snakes came, the people believed God sent the snakes to punish them, and like all of us afraid of snakes and punishment, we want to know how make it stop.

The people recognize their sin and begged Moses to ask God to take the snakes away, but instead, God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a staff (tall stick) and that when the people looked at the snake on the staff, they would be healed. Their freedom from the snakes was being healed from their bites, not in destroying the snakes. Once again, God lead the people down a path different from the one they desired and their journey continued.[i]

My guess is that most of us don’t remember this story from Numbers, but the Jews of Jesus’ day would have. Recounting this story sets up a foundation for Jesus to build on. Think about the action of looking at the bronze snake. For those who had been bitten, it meant looking up from their own pain and fear to a symbol that represented the healing and wholeness of God. When Jesus says, “the Son of Man must be lifted up,” he is foretelling a time when he will not be standing in front of them but lifted up and in a different place than they could ever imagine him, giving a healing we will never really understand.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the dark of night to find out more about this Jesus everyone was talking about. It sounds a little like an undercover mission, because Nicodemus slips in from the shadows to engage Jesus in conversation. “You talk about new life, Jesus… what must I do to have it?” Give me the equation, the formula, the step-by-step process for achieving what seems impossible, being born to new life.

Jesus’ response is not formulaic, but relational. Life in Christ is not paint-by-numbers or like putting together a cabinet from IKEA with premeasured boards and a little bag of nuts, bolts and Allen wrenches. Instead, Jesus is the bridge between the two sides of life: Spirit and world, darkness and light, life and death, truth and wickedness, belief and unbelief.[ii] To have new life, we must come into the light.

From the very first story, we see humanity struggling with questions of life. Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden because they thought that wisdom had more power than relationship. Moses and his merry crew wandered through the wilderness for 40 years because they couldn’t – no, wouldn’t – participate fully in the relationship that God offered them, usually trusting more in their own desires and wisdom than in the promises made to them.

The cross of Jesus Christ changes everything about the way God relates to us. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are not just a model of sacrifice but are also about retuning our lives to God’s frequency, experiencing God in a new way. They teach us about trusting God’s promises and believing in the kind of life God calls us to live, even if we don’t recognize it at the time.

We hear "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life,” and even the most high-churched among us can be lured into thinking that belief is the key that unlocks the door to faith… that there are theological requirements and caveats that define what it means to be in or out of the Kingdom.[iii]

But from this passage, I am not sure that we have it right. What if citizenship in the Kingdom is not an intellectual process at all, but instead is defined by living a particular kind of life? I showed the kids some pictures today. They were of me at various ages in my life, and a picture of me and Shawn on our wedding day, 23 years ago this month. In the older pictures, it’s hard to recognize the me you see today. And even though we are easily recognizable from our wedding portrait, I can assure you that we are not the same people that we were back then.

We’ve been talking in Confirmation class about the realities of growing up surrounded by the stories of Jesus, which is true for many of us. While other people may have a clear, concise memory of coming to faith in Christ, for many others, faith in Christ starts as a way of life and belief emerges from the daily practices of faith. When I applied to seminary, I expected that they might ask me to take some introductory religion or bible classes, since microbiology, biochemistry and blood banking don’t make for the most stellar academic entrance into religious studies. But they told me that my long walk of faith and willingness to learn would more than make up for my lack of book knowledge. In fact, almost half of the students in my first-year class were coming to seminary from other fields of study because their faith in Jesus in lead them down this most unexpected path.

We read John 3:16 and we hear past tense… for God so loved the world. But the reality is that God’s time is in the past, present and future, always the same. Yes, Jesus did come into the world in our past, but he is also coming into the world today and in the future, through his people, the Church. Maybe there is no one in the congregation who is seeking a life as a pastor or priest. But I hope that you all are growing into service and leadership of some kind.

Dallas Willard wrote some amazing things about discipleship. He was a scholar of Christian discipleship and he practiced what he preached. In his book, The Great Omission, he reminds us that at his ascension, Jesus said, “Go and make disciples,” not “Go and make believers.” Our great omission is not seeing the difference between the two, for others and for ourselves.

A friend reminded me of a quote that sums up the struggles and requirements of practicing our faith in the world every day: “There is absolutely nothing in what Jesus or his early followers taught that suggests that you can decide to enjoy forgiveness at Jesus’ expense and have nothing more to do with him.” (The Great Omission, pg 13). Somehow, we have made belief the thing which offers us entry into the Kingdom of God, with little or no expectation of anything coming afterward.

This week I realized that I have been preaching in this congregation longer than in any other time since I married and became a vagabond Methodist evangelist. I know this because I looked at my previous sermons on this passage and saw that the last time I preached on Lent 4 B it here in Panzer Chapel, to you my Liturgical friends. And I loved that sermon, which I thought about preaching again today, hoping none of you would notice. But my friend Johannah reminded me that a new lesson will always be unlocked from the scriptures if we allow it. Her questions and recommendation of a few offers unlocked a new message of encouragement and hope, reminding me that the gospel is both reliable and fresh.

I look at that picture of myself as a newly baptized infant, 3 months old, and I cannot see my face in that face. I look at my picture at 4 years old and see a wisp of who I will become. Even looking at the pictures of me on my wedding day, truly one of the most beautiful and life-changing days ever, I can just barely remember the person I was then. So many places, so many faces, so many opportunities to love and serve God. Some of them I have taken… some of them I have not. Even so, with the help of my fellow disciples, I keep pressing toward the light and away from the darkness. I keep preaching and teaching because those are the gifts that God gave me to grow my faith and encourage others in theirs.

This journey of life and faith has brought me so far. It has brought you far, too, maybe further than you think. And I think that’s what Jesus wants. One of the reasons that I think Shawn and I have made it to 23 mostly happy years is our willingness to grow and change, individually and as a family. And while I must admit that constantly moving and making new friends are part of the equation, I wonder if successfully intinerating through military and ministerial life isn’t more a byproduct of, rather than a reason for living a disciple’s life.

The wedding vows we all know so well ask something particular and peculiar from us. They do not ask, “Do you love each other?” They ask, “Will you love each other?... to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish…” We make those promises not know what’s going to come next. And they are hard, so hard that some days we wonder why we ever thought this was a good idea.

But if you keep working at it together, you grow past the difficult times and into a new life, with new habits and new dreams and visions together. And you keep repeating the process because no week or month or day of marriage or life is perfect. And because of that promise, you keep pressing on, even though sometimes it seems that for every bit of progress you make, it’s easy to slip back a little, too.

During the Lenten season, we have explored our multi-dimensional relationship with God. There are obligations and blessings: repentance, and renewal, sacrifice and salvation, discipleship and deliverance. This week we see it all in the context of God’s never-ending love for us in Jesus Christ. And while it seems that our progress is only inching along, God put everything he had into the game.[iv] Realizing that is what the Lenten season is all about. Incorporating that is called discipleship… let us live and love and work together in the Light. "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

 Peace, Deb

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[i] Cameron B.R.Howard, Preach This Week, Commentary on Numbers 21:4-9, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3606

[ii] Robb McCoy and Eric Fistler, Lent 4B, Pulpit Fiction, https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/lent4b

[iii] Samuel Cruz, Commentary on John 3:14-21, Preach This Week, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3579

[iv] David Sellery, “A Game of Inches,” This Week’s Focus, Lent 4B, https://mailchi.mp/davidsellery/game-of-inches

Sermon: Bridges or Walls? (Lent 3B)

3rd Sunday in Lent -- Year B -- March 4, 2018           Panzer Military Chapel, Germany

Exodus 20:1-17     I Corinthians 1:18-25      John 2:13-22

Bridges or Walls

Watch the news, read the paper, talk to your friends… it’s not a surprise to any of us that the world is a pretty fractured these days. Instinct tells us to build walls between ourselves and the people who are different than us… religion, political affiliation, race, even our schools of choice would have us associate only with people who are just like us.

At first glance, it seems like walls would make us safer… our worldview is affirmed and we can stay safe and sound in cocoons of our own making. Walls are built to protect us, to set us apart, and even keep us pure. At the same time, our walls have a tendency to make us lonely and unchallenged. Bridges, on the other hand, are built to connect things, to bring us closer to places once considered unreachable and to open up the possibilities that surround us.

The scriptures for today beg the question: Bridges or Walls? Are there more things in our lives that separate us from people than draw us to them? And how that does that affect our choices in friendships, jobs, the places we go and activities we pursue?

I remember a story in Guidepost magazine about a family that retired to a friendly WV community. But after living there for a while, Fred Nicholas started thinking it was a little too friendly. It turns out that the shortest walking route to town went right through the middle of their backyard. At all hours of the day, they were greeted by young people riding their bikes up the driveway and through the grass. It wasn’t unusual to look up from the dinner table to see a stranger waving through the kitchen window as they ate their evening meal.

Call Fred irritated. No one ever asked – they just assumed it would be OK. And the more worn the yard became, the more irritated he got until finally one day he could take no more. He put up a sign -- “No Trespassing.” When that didn’t seem to make an impression, he began to speak to people as they passed through.

 “Please don’t walk on my grass.” All he got in return were giggles, salutes, and blank looks. And they kept on walking. “Enough is enough,” he said. “I’m going to keep these people out, one way or another.” His solution? Erect a wall. Well, actually, it was a fence... a barbed wire fence. And you know what? It did the trick. People learned pretty quickly that “Nicholas Pass” was no longer the best way to town.

Walls do a good job of blocking out the things that we don’t like or don’t want to know about. Walls keep us, and everyone else, in our places. But walls also keep us from seeing what’s on the other side. They keep us from experiencing life in new ways. And in the end, walls built to protect us do more to chain us than they ever do to free us.

Bridges, on the other hand, connect things. Yes, they are sometimes scary… if you’ve ever been on a long bridge on a windy day, your hands stay tight on the wheel until you make it safely to the other side. But bridges open up the world in ways we never imagined. Think about all the new friends, new foods, new places and experiences that came to you when you took advantage of a bridge.

So, what does this have to do with our lessons?

Today’s Old Testament lesson was taken from the book of Exodus. We think of the 10 commandments as an ethical code. But that was not their primary purpose. Verse 1 sets up everything that comes after: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” As a whole, they don’t just tell us how to live. They tell us in whom we must live -- The LORD our God.

If we don’t understand that, then we use 10 Commandments as a wall… to keep ourselves in line, to judge others, to stay safe from the unknown, and easily identified as members of the “family”.

But what would happens if we use these commandments as they were intended, as a bridge between God and us? As a means of bridging the differences between us, establishing common ground among people who worship to the same God?

Throughout time, the Hebrew people and their descendants have been interpreting God’s law as a law of exclusion rather than a law of inclusion. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are filled with rules and regulations for how God’s people will behave. But Jesus was able to boil all of those laws down to two: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). Isn’t this what these commandments are all about?

No wonder Jesus was so upset when he entered the temple that day. “Get out of here. Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” Jesus was railing against a people who were more concerned with the purity of their sacrificial doves and cattle than they were their own hearts. With this act of holy anger, Jesus says, “You cannot worship the God of money nor the God of purity and be faithful in my Kingdom.”  

The Hebrew Bible story is filled with evidence that God’s people don’t learn from their mistakes. Over and over, walls were built, when finally, God gave them the ultimate bridge. It became clear to God that the laws and his warning of the prophets were not enough to convince the people to change their ways. What else could he do to convince them of his love? What bridge could possibly be strong and long and high enough to carry the people away from certain death and bring them to the God of grace and mercy?

Jesus is the answer to all of those questions, but not in the way that anyone imagined. The Messiah was supposed to bring back their former glory, not get crucified for his trouble. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says it well: “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Only a bridge as radical as the cross could get our attention, for it is not what we expect. “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

I think this is the hardest part of us, for Christians of almost every generation. Power is so alluring. It is so hard to remember that we are the ones called to speak truth to power, not to conform to the conventional wisdom of the day. Our real challenge as Christians is to be brave enough to stand up to the injustices of the world. We are called to put Jesus’ and his call to love God first and best at the very center of everything we do and say.

Only bridges allow us to go from place to place. Sometimes they are scary. Sometimes they go into unknown places, but they help us to reach out to the world, to go forth in the name of the Lord, taking God’s peace, and the knowledge of our forgiveness with us. God’s best bridge, the cross of Jesus Christ, sends us out to proclaim the love of Christ to all the world.

Through the cross, we are all redeemed. Through the cross, we understand the real meaning of sacrifice. Through the cross, we hear Jesus calling us to challenge the way things have always been and build a bridge that connects us more fully to God.

God’s love cannot be bound by walls, no matter how tall or thick we build them. God’s love can’t be diverted by church politics or racism or sexism or financial difficulties or discrimination of any kind. God’s love cannot be diluted by laws and regulations which serve to keep people out of the family instead of welcoming them to God’s loving, forgiving arms. When we place our trust in Jesus, that’s when we can build the bridges needed to spread God’s love – to speak God’s truth.

So, whatever happened to Fred and his fence? Eventually, someone came and asked him why he built the fence. “What are you figuring on keeping in there -- cows or sheep?” “Neither,” Fred answered testily. “It’s to there to keep out trespassers.”

“Trespassers, huh? We ain’t figured anybody in the community as a trespasser before. We’ve always felt like neighbors.” And when his granddaughter told him about a grumpy, old man in her neighborhood who yelled at people for walking on his grass, saying “I’m glad you’re not like that, Granddad…” Children often are best tutors. Needless to say, the fence came down. (Guidepost 1994)

Our practice of building walls comes with years of practice, learned from watching those older than us perfect the process over time. But we all know that our first instinct is to build bridges. I shared a quote from Robert Fulghum earlier with the kids, and I think we’d all be well advised to remember the lessons we learn in kindergarten. When you get to the nitty gritty, this is what bridge-building is all about:

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don't hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don't take things that aren't yours.

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life -

Learn some and think some

And draw and paint and sing and dance

And play and work everyday some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world,

Watch out for traffic,

Hold hands and stick together.

Be aware of wonder.

(Fulghum, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, 1986)

Now those are some great rules to live by. Let’s be bridgebuilders together. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Peace, Deb