and I'm pretty excited about it. he arrived last night about nine, after two hard days of driving. the beagles are with him and the dogs are all getting used to each other.
pictures soon.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
August 15 sermon
Fire and Rain
Start with the James Taylor song, “Fire and Rain” which is a gentle and mournful song about the end of a relationship.
Fire and Rain are two elements Jesus uses in this passage - which is so hard to hear and interpret. But, unlike Sweet Baby James, Jesus doesn’t sound melancholy and resigned. He sounds cranky and confrontational. This isn’t Jesus, Meek and Mild, that we expect to encounter.
Reminded me of the story about the flight attendent on a Jet Blue flight this week that made the news. Flight attendents are usually so pleasant and cheerful and helpful and encouraging. And they have to be. Even when passengers misbehave, or don’t follow regulations, or are extra demanding, flight attendents have to stay cool. It’s their job. But this guy finally had had it. A passenger pushed him too far, and he lost it - cussed her out and then grabbed a beer and slid down the emergency exit. We don’t want to ride with that guy! and here is Jesus sounded only slightly less exasperated with his followers and the crowd. Is this what flying with Jesus is going to be like? Maybe we should be the ones pulling the escape lever and sliding down out of church, making our escape. (In fact, I really like the image of our nice wide steps out front covered with a big red inflatable slide and the congregation exiting in a hurry.)
But before we do - I think we ought to at least listen to try to hear what this passage is really saying to us: And the first thing to notice is where in the narrative Luke places this exchange. At this point, Jesus has “set his face” towards Jerusalem. He has been preaching forgiveness over vengeance, grace over works, faith and courage rather than fear. And he knows, clearly he knows, that making these choices is going to cost him his life. He knows that the cross awaits him. And yet his disciples lag behind him in understanding in every way. So he tries to bring them to understanding by talking about fire and rain.
First fire. And this is an exchange between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus tells them, I have come to kindle a fire on the earth. Fire is a symbol of God’s presence. When God led Moses and the Hebrew people out of Egypt, he led them with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud during the day. The burning fire, which lit up the night, was a majestic and awe-ful manifestation of the invisible God. God made Himself known in the fire. In the same way, Jesus is the visible presence of the invisible God. He is burning with a passion for God’s will and God’s way. He is the way human beings know God’s way and to follow him is to follow God’s leading.
Jesus knows that his time on earth is limited. And if people are going to follow God, Jesus is going to have to have disciples who are “on fire” for God to lead them when Jesus himself is gone. What Jesus wanted more than anything else was not to have a 120 half committed disciples but Jesus wanted 12 fully committed disciples. Those 12 fully committed disciples would change the world.
And he seems to be working with some pretty wet kindling. The disciples ask dumb questions. They miss the point of his preaching. They put earthly loyalties ahead of total trust in Him.
Two thousand years later, not much has changed. Jesus’ disciples are still smoking and smouldering, but only rarely catching fire. And I’m not talking just about those in the pews. In fact this week a series of articles in the New York Times concerned a phenomenon they called “clergy burnout”. Ministers are leaving their calling in droves, and many answered a survey saying that they are staying only because they don’t have any other way to make a living. My favorite comment on this was by Bill Easum, who has been in the ministry even longer than . . . well, longer than I have. He said, “How is it that so many ministers can be burned out, when most of them have never been on fire?”
This fear of burning people out is something I hear in relation to church work and church workers among folks around here, too. We don’t want to ask people to do too much, or make too much of a commitment to the work of the church because we don’t want them to get “burned out”. We turn down opportunities to serve, to “pace ourselves” because we don’t want to get “burned out”. Meanwhile, the people who work the hardest and most diligently - teaching Sunday School, serving meals, preparing music for worship, calling on neighbors, giving sacrificially, supporting the youth program, the mission work, etc. - seem to reap the greatest blessings. They have a glow about them, when you see them at work. And they get tired. But they don’t get burned out.
Perhaps we should worry less about getting burned out and more about catching fire and actually living out what we say our commitment is to Christ and his mission.
Garth Brooks Refrain:
Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried it is merely survived
If you're standing outside the fire
Jesus said, “Would that the fire were already kindled.” Add these words - in my life. What would it mean for our community and our world if each of us would surrender to the fire of Jesus’ love in our lives? Become totally committed to living the life that he has invited us to share.
As I’ve been thinking about that kind of commitment, I was reminded of a story of what Julius Caesar’s soldiers did when they came to conquer Britain. Do you know that story? The Romans approached the island nation by sea of course. The Brits saw them coming a long way off. They massed in the highlands above the beach and waited to see what would happen. But when the Romans reached the shore, they did something that no one expected, and which showed their commitment to their mission so unmistakably that the Britons were filled with awe and fear. Do you know what they did? They burned their boats. There was no turning back. They were there to conquer or to die.
That’s the kind of burning commitment that Jesus is trying to kindle in his disciples - the kind that says, “I am following you now, Lord. I will not turn back. When struggles come, when difficulties arise, when other priorities vie for my attention and my loyalty, I am still going to follow you.” That’s the kind of discipleship that Jesus needed 2000 years ago, and that’s the kind of discipleship Jesus needs, still today, to set the world on fire.
The second image Jesus uses is the sign of rain. And this is addressed to the crowd. Not the disciples. The hangers-on. The spectators in his religious road show. To them he says, “You guys talk about the weather. You’re really good at figuring out the obvious: Clouds in the sky? Looks like rain. Wind from the south? Gonna be a scorcher! Instead of standing around talking about the weather, you might want to turn your attention to what God is doing right here and right now.
Part of Culpepper's (Luke, New Interpreters Bible) reflections on these verses:
To what do we pay close attention, and to what do we turn a blind eye?...
Jesus' sayings challenge us to examine the balance of attention and neglect in our own lives, to consider whether these there is a pattern of prioritizing the insignificant while jeopardizing the things of greatest value and importance. Have we given as much attention to the health of the church as we have to our golf score? Have we given as much attention to the maintenance of our spiritual disciplines as to the maintenance schedule for our car? Where in the scale of our attention to detail does our devotion to the teachings of our Lord rank? [p. 269]
Do we put off attending to those things that matter - put living our faith off for some “future” more convenient time? Jesus says there is no time like the present. Today. Now. This is the opportune moment. This emphasis on the present is not an aberration. Jesus starts out his ministry by reading a prophecy and his only commentary is “TODAY this scripture is fulfilled among you.” He says to Zaccheus, “Today salvation has come to your house.” He tells the criminal on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
The Apostle Paul, in his preaching of the Gospel picks this up so beautifully when he says to the church in Corinth, “Now is the acceptable day of the Lord. Today is the day of salvation.”
Don’t put it off. Pay attention. God is moving in the world right now. Will we participate in what God is doing right now?
Fire and Rain. Unlike James Taylor’s use of the images in his soft, sweet song, Jesus’ talk about fire and rain has hard edges. These sayings challenge and accuse us. The fire talk burns us, and it’s a hard rain that washes away our complacency. Maybe we prefer the softer, sweeter song. But we should remember that that sweet song is about the end of a relationship. “Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone. . . . I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain, but I always thought that I’d see you again.”
And Jesus’ more difficult sayings are spoken out of his own burning desire that the relationship he offers us should not end - but deepen, strengthen, become something lasting and beautiful and true. Jesus’ fire and rain are his way of urgently encouraging us to become the disciples he has invited us to be. To not miss the opportunity we have in the present moment to follow him.
I had this sermon all written, when I thought maybe I’d look up the lyrics to the james taylor song I remembered from so many years ago. And much to my surprise, there was a verse that I didn’t remember at all. Not at all. It is a prayer. Let us pray:
Won't you look down upon me, Jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way
Sweet Jesus, our time is at hand. Help us to make our stand with you. Kindle in us the fire of a deeply committed relationship with you - one that begins this day, one that will last throughout eternity.
Amen.
Start with the James Taylor song, “Fire and Rain” which is a gentle and mournful song about the end of a relationship.
Fire and Rain are two elements Jesus uses in this passage - which is so hard to hear and interpret. But, unlike Sweet Baby James, Jesus doesn’t sound melancholy and resigned. He sounds cranky and confrontational. This isn’t Jesus, Meek and Mild, that we expect to encounter.
Reminded me of the story about the flight attendent on a Jet Blue flight this week that made the news. Flight attendents are usually so pleasant and cheerful and helpful and encouraging. And they have to be. Even when passengers misbehave, or don’t follow regulations, or are extra demanding, flight attendents have to stay cool. It’s their job. But this guy finally had had it. A passenger pushed him too far, and he lost it - cussed her out and then grabbed a beer and slid down the emergency exit. We don’t want to ride with that guy! and here is Jesus sounded only slightly less exasperated with his followers and the crowd. Is this what flying with Jesus is going to be like? Maybe we should be the ones pulling the escape lever and sliding down out of church, making our escape. (In fact, I really like the image of our nice wide steps out front covered with a big red inflatable slide and the congregation exiting in a hurry.)
But before we do - I think we ought to at least listen to try to hear what this passage is really saying to us: And the first thing to notice is where in the narrative Luke places this exchange. At this point, Jesus has “set his face” towards Jerusalem. He has been preaching forgiveness over vengeance, grace over works, faith and courage rather than fear. And he knows, clearly he knows, that making these choices is going to cost him his life. He knows that the cross awaits him. And yet his disciples lag behind him in understanding in every way. So he tries to bring them to understanding by talking about fire and rain.
First fire. And this is an exchange between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus tells them, I have come to kindle a fire on the earth. Fire is a symbol of God’s presence. When God led Moses and the Hebrew people out of Egypt, he led them with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud during the day. The burning fire, which lit up the night, was a majestic and awe-ful manifestation of the invisible God. God made Himself known in the fire. In the same way, Jesus is the visible presence of the invisible God. He is burning with a passion for God’s will and God’s way. He is the way human beings know God’s way and to follow him is to follow God’s leading.
Jesus knows that his time on earth is limited. And if people are going to follow God, Jesus is going to have to have disciples who are “on fire” for God to lead them when Jesus himself is gone. What Jesus wanted more than anything else was not to have a 120 half committed disciples but Jesus wanted 12 fully committed disciples. Those 12 fully committed disciples would change the world.
And he seems to be working with some pretty wet kindling. The disciples ask dumb questions. They miss the point of his preaching. They put earthly loyalties ahead of total trust in Him.
Two thousand years later, not much has changed. Jesus’ disciples are still smoking and smouldering, but only rarely catching fire. And I’m not talking just about those in the pews. In fact this week a series of articles in the New York Times concerned a phenomenon they called “clergy burnout”. Ministers are leaving their calling in droves, and many answered a survey saying that they are staying only because they don’t have any other way to make a living. My favorite comment on this was by Bill Easum, who has been in the ministry even longer than . . . well, longer than I have. He said, “How is it that so many ministers can be burned out, when most of them have never been on fire?”
This fear of burning people out is something I hear in relation to church work and church workers among folks around here, too. We don’t want to ask people to do too much, or make too much of a commitment to the work of the church because we don’t want them to get “burned out”. We turn down opportunities to serve, to “pace ourselves” because we don’t want to get “burned out”. Meanwhile, the people who work the hardest and most diligently - teaching Sunday School, serving meals, preparing music for worship, calling on neighbors, giving sacrificially, supporting the youth program, the mission work, etc. - seem to reap the greatest blessings. They have a glow about them, when you see them at work. And they get tired. But they don’t get burned out.
Perhaps we should worry less about getting burned out and more about catching fire and actually living out what we say our commitment is to Christ and his mission.
Garth Brooks Refrain:
Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried it is merely survived
If you're standing outside the fire
Jesus said, “Would that the fire were already kindled.” Add these words - in my life. What would it mean for our community and our world if each of us would surrender to the fire of Jesus’ love in our lives? Become totally committed to living the life that he has invited us to share.
As I’ve been thinking about that kind of commitment, I was reminded of a story of what Julius Caesar’s soldiers did when they came to conquer Britain. Do you know that story? The Romans approached the island nation by sea of course. The Brits saw them coming a long way off. They massed in the highlands above the beach and waited to see what would happen. But when the Romans reached the shore, they did something that no one expected, and which showed their commitment to their mission so unmistakably that the Britons were filled with awe and fear. Do you know what they did? They burned their boats. There was no turning back. They were there to conquer or to die.
That’s the kind of burning commitment that Jesus is trying to kindle in his disciples - the kind that says, “I am following you now, Lord. I will not turn back. When struggles come, when difficulties arise, when other priorities vie for my attention and my loyalty, I am still going to follow you.” That’s the kind of discipleship that Jesus needed 2000 years ago, and that’s the kind of discipleship Jesus needs, still today, to set the world on fire.
The second image Jesus uses is the sign of rain. And this is addressed to the crowd. Not the disciples. The hangers-on. The spectators in his religious road show. To them he says, “You guys talk about the weather. You’re really good at figuring out the obvious: Clouds in the sky? Looks like rain. Wind from the south? Gonna be a scorcher! Instead of standing around talking about the weather, you might want to turn your attention to what God is doing right here and right now.
Part of Culpepper's (Luke, New Interpreters Bible) reflections on these verses:
To what do we pay close attention, and to what do we turn a blind eye?...
Jesus' sayings challenge us to examine the balance of attention and neglect in our own lives, to consider whether these there is a pattern of prioritizing the insignificant while jeopardizing the things of greatest value and importance. Have we given as much attention to the health of the church as we have to our golf score? Have we given as much attention to the maintenance of our spiritual disciplines as to the maintenance schedule for our car? Where in the scale of our attention to detail does our devotion to the teachings of our Lord rank? [p. 269]
Do we put off attending to those things that matter - put living our faith off for some “future” more convenient time? Jesus says there is no time like the present. Today. Now. This is the opportune moment. This emphasis on the present is not an aberration. Jesus starts out his ministry by reading a prophecy and his only commentary is “TODAY this scripture is fulfilled among you.” He says to Zaccheus, “Today salvation has come to your house.” He tells the criminal on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
The Apostle Paul, in his preaching of the Gospel picks this up so beautifully when he says to the church in Corinth, “Now is the acceptable day of the Lord. Today is the day of salvation.”
Don’t put it off. Pay attention. God is moving in the world right now. Will we participate in what God is doing right now?
Fire and Rain. Unlike James Taylor’s use of the images in his soft, sweet song, Jesus’ talk about fire and rain has hard edges. These sayings challenge and accuse us. The fire talk burns us, and it’s a hard rain that washes away our complacency. Maybe we prefer the softer, sweeter song. But we should remember that that sweet song is about the end of a relationship. “Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone. . . . I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain, but I always thought that I’d see you again.”
And Jesus’ more difficult sayings are spoken out of his own burning desire that the relationship he offers us should not end - but deepen, strengthen, become something lasting and beautiful and true. Jesus’ fire and rain are his way of urgently encouraging us to become the disciples he has invited us to be. To not miss the opportunity we have in the present moment to follow him.
I had this sermon all written, when I thought maybe I’d look up the lyrics to the james taylor song I remembered from so many years ago. And much to my surprise, there was a verse that I didn’t remember at all. Not at all. It is a prayer. Let us pray:
Won't you look down upon me, Jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way
Sweet Jesus, our time is at hand. Help us to make our stand with you. Kindle in us the fire of a deeply committed relationship with you - one that begins this day, one that will last throughout eternity.
Amen.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Burned out or Zonked out?
Last night I went to sleep about 8:30 and slept til 7 this morning. And I have to admit, I do feel better today than I have in weeks. Maybe I'm just tired.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Wednesday
Today is our day at VBS - to do the Bible Story and bring the food. I haven't felt real connected with the whole process this year, though we do have 7 kids and 3 leaders there, and I've tried to see them each night. Attendance is low this year. Second year in a row, and some of us are talking about maybe doing something different next year.
Of course, when I got to be in charge a few years ago, we tried something different and everyone went STAMPEDING back to the old way. (But, honestly, I think we had a good year. We had over 100 kids there, and some of them still tell me they remember it and thought it was cool.)
I wonder is we could do something more God/Creation/Renewing the Earth centered. I heard Tolono did that it turned out great. Recycling and gardening and learning. Just a thought. Charleston takes the kids camping for a night and they spend the day in a state park. Wouldn't that be more memorable?
The folks who take the lead with this VBS are such incredibly hard workers, and they put alot of themselves into it. Maybe we should just leave it be.
This morning I'm meeting someone who works with Tim for coffee and to talk about my trip to Palestine. She's from Lebanon and I want to know enough to be a good guest there. Some phrases, the right greetings, etc. So I'm tickled about that.
Jeri and Kirk got home from Malawi. The trip was incredible. The total culture change was both eye-opening and exhausting, as I remember from Nicaragua. But Africa is WAY more challenging than Nicaragua! I think it will take them a few days to get rested up before they can even recognize themselves in the mirror. Tough trip. I'm so proud of them for answering the call to go!!!
Other things to do today - send bulletin material for Paris pulpit exchange
plan 1/2 of service for Youth Sunday.
look toward fall sermon series (arg!)
enjoy the beautiful birds and flowers in my yard.
write thankyou notes to the great folks who helped pull last Sunday together.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Presby Park Picnic Potluck w/ Prairie Dog Band
The Tolono Presbys joined us for a wonderful worship service. Thanks to Rev. Kerry Bean for his help with the service - and to everyone who brought their hearts, their voices, their neighbors and their covered dishes! The Spirit moved. (I hope that's not too presumptuous. I really mean it.)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Trying to think about what happened yesterday
Yesterday the man who used to run the Philo Country Store shot his brother at his grocery store in Tolono. The brother died. It is so sad and horrible, it is hard to think about anything else.
Brian is just a regular guy - friendly, hard working, a little crude sometimes, but he was generous in helping out the Youth Group with a car wash on more than one occasion. He wasn't religious - in fact the only theological conversations we ever had concerned his good deeds "making points with the Big Guy". I feel pretty sure that that kind of thinking isn't going to be of much help to him as he tries to sort out what has happened now.
I wonder how his family - his parents and his wife and children - are going to cope. The future suddenly is very dark and torturous for all of them.
You know, the Presbyterian/Protestant/probably all Christian way of thinking SAYS that we are all sinners and that without God's help we are capable of terrible things. But I doubt if any of us really come to grips very often with the implications of that. We don't REALLY think of ourselves, day to day, as having evil lurking in our hearts. But then something like this happens and . . . here is a man who is not all that different than most of us, and he killed his brother.
We might try to come up with the ways that we are different from him - hoping to shut out the horror and distance ourselves from it. But I think we might learn more and maybe grow more as human beings if we admit that what happened is an indication of who we all are, at some level at least. And I'd hope that that recognition would redouble our reliance on God's grace and forgiveness in our lives.
I hope that Brian finds someone who can tell him about God better than I did. And I hope his family finds lots of Christian friends who can walk with them through the valley of the shadow of death.
Brian is just a regular guy - friendly, hard working, a little crude sometimes, but he was generous in helping out the Youth Group with a car wash on more than one occasion. He wasn't religious - in fact the only theological conversations we ever had concerned his good deeds "making points with the Big Guy". I feel pretty sure that that kind of thinking isn't going to be of much help to him as he tries to sort out what has happened now.
I wonder how his family - his parents and his wife and children - are going to cope. The future suddenly is very dark and torturous for all of them.
You know, the Presbyterian/Protestant/probably all Christian way of thinking SAYS that we are all sinners and that without God's help we are capable of terrible things. But I doubt if any of us really come to grips very often with the implications of that. We don't REALLY think of ourselves, day to day, as having evil lurking in our hearts. But then something like this happens and . . . here is a man who is not all that different than most of us, and he killed his brother.
We might try to come up with the ways that we are different from him - hoping to shut out the horror and distance ourselves from it. But I think we might learn more and maybe grow more as human beings if we admit that what happened is an indication of who we all are, at some level at least. And I'd hope that that recognition would redouble our reliance on God's grace and forgiveness in our lives.
I hope that Brian finds someone who can tell him about God better than I did. And I hope his family finds lots of Christian friends who can walk with them through the valley of the shadow of death.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Early Morning Sermon
This one was really hard to write. Why?
Hymn of the Cosmic Christ
Colossians 1:15-29
O What a beautiful morning, O what a beautiful day!
I think I’ve told you before how much I love the movie and theatre moments in which characters burst into song. Viewed from the grumpy side of life, those moments seem kind of silly and embarrassing. But they also represent a kind of border between the mundane and the spiritual. Between ordinary life and rapture. Between what can be rationally stated, and what must be heart-fully expressed.
Our scripture reading this morning represents on of those moments - when the enormity and beauty of what he wants to express overwhelms mere prose. And he breaks into song.
This first part of our scripture lesson is a hymn - a song - extolling Christ and expressing the wonder of what God has done for us through Christ. This hymn was most probably sung in the early church
(I think it’s worth a moment to think about the fact that as the church was getting started and spreading, one of the first things they did was compse hymns and sing. Writing creeds came much later. Even writing alot of the New Testament came later. Hymns came quickly and took hold - that’s how closely linked our faith is to our songs. That’s why what Betty and our other accompanists do is not just . . . entertain us or show their personal musical gifts. When she plays for us, Betty connects us to one of the most basic forms of Christian expression. And we should never take that for granted. Thank you Betty, for enabling us to sing!)
Theologians and Biblical scholars refer to this portion of scripture as the Hymn of the Cosmic Christ, because it attempts to express who the one we call Jesus is and was, not only in his earthly life, but in terms of cosmic time and the context of all of creation.
Christ is the image of the invisible God, it begins.
In Christ were all things created.
All things were created by Christ and for Christ.
And in Christ all things are held together.
For in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.
The majesty of creation is tied to the wonder of reconciliation in Christ Jesus our Lord.
A few weeks ago, I asked the congregation to fill out cards, with questions and issues that you would like addressed in sermons or bible studies. And I’ve been praying over those index cards, just keeping the faith of those writers and the themes they raised in mind as I planned for this fall.
And this week, as we continue to read in Colossians, I felt like the passage might help address one of the issues that were raised by thoughtful, faithful people. (Actualy, I thought I might address two of the questions, but the sermon got too long so I’m putting question #2 - about discerning God’s will back to be addressed more fully later.) One was about how we think about other religions, and whether or not God grants eteranal life to anyone but those who are Christians. What about good Buddhists? Good Jewish people? Good and devout Muslims? In our increasingly connected world, these questions take on some urgency. We see these people on tv. We read about them in books and on line. Doesn’t God love and care for them? Does God reject them because they do not call on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ?
Haven’t alot of us thought about that? People of faith, theologians and philosophers have spent alot of time thinking about that question. And this passage is one of the ones that they consider in that regard. Because it opens up a vision of Christ and an expression of the scope of His work that gives us a different vantage point or perspective on questions about God and other religions.
On the one hand, the hymn affirms that it is in Christ Jesus that we know God. He is the image - the mirror - the reflection - the representation - of Almighty God. In human form, God was pleased to dwell. We get much the same language in the first chapter of the Gospel of John- the Word became flesh and dwelt among us - the fullness of Grace and Truth. Christ is unique and we cannot know God apart from Him.
But, amazingly, as music sometimes can, the hymn also pulls us what feels like the opposite direction: Christ was present at the dawn of creation and EVERYTHING that was created was created by and for Him. Our Lord is not just a teacher in Palestine who founded a nice religion - one among many others, which are now in some sort of contest to see who can get the most votes in a worldwide “Earth’s Got Religion”. Christ created the earth, and holds together that creation. Which makes us think, well, Christ can and will work in and through all things to accomplish God’s purpose. In all humility, know that God is God, we have to allow for the possibility that Christ is working in and through in other peole, even of other religions, to care for and love and reconcile people to Himself. The Bible doesn’t just say, Everyone must believe in Jesus. It also says, with equal strength and power, “Through Christ God was pleased (past tense, you guys - Christ’s reconciling work is accomplished) to reconcile ALL THINGS to himself.
One of the ways that Reformed theology differs from Baptist and Anabaptist and New Wave popular TV evangelist theology is that our flavor of Christianity has also carried the insistence that God is free and God can and will “save” those whom God chooses, that it is not up to us to win or earn our salvation by works or any other way. Presbyterians have taken seriously that grace is a gift. And we respect God enough to think that God can and will give that gift out to whomever God wants.
And Christ’s own mission and ministry seem to point to God’s great desire to give it away to all. There is not an ethnic group Jesus leaves out, not a gender group he favors, not a religious boundary he encounters that he doesn’t cross, not a moral failure that is beyond his forgiveness. God’s grace is offered to all. Even to those who reject him and crucifed him. As he was dying - hanging on the cross that saves us - Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” Those words are our ultimate hope and our ultimate assurance that we ourselves are saved.
Now - taken to the extreme - this thought has given rise to the position we call Universalism. The theological position that God saves everyone, no matter what, because God’s love is so great that no one has the power to overcome or reject it.
Presbyterians are not universalists. One of our greatest theologians, Karl Barth, puts it this way: "The proclamation of the Church must make allowance for this freedom of grace. Apokatastasis Panton? No, for a grace which automatically would ultimately have to embrace each and every one would certainly not be free grace. It surely would not be God's grace. But would it be God's free grace if we could absolutely deny that it could do that? Has Christ been sacrificed only for our sins? Has he not ... been sacrificed for the whole world? ... [Thus] the freedom of grace is preserved on both these sides." [5]
For Barth, then, and for Reformed and Presbyterian Christians, the place we wind up is held in the same creative tension that we find in this hymn: Faith in Christ means that we can neither affirm nor deny the possibility that all will be saved.
So what can we do? Our answer is clear: we can hope (see CD IV/3, pp. 477-78). [6]
We can cling to Christ and the hope that he offers for our lives only as deeply and fervently as we offer and embody that hope in a world that clearly stands in need of his mercy and grace.
When we encounter people of other faiths, we look for Christ’s reconciling work in them, we have faith that Christ is there - because Christ is everywhere! - and we give thanks for that work, no matter who seems to be involved in it. We don’t presume to know what God is doing in their lives, even as we share with them the good news of what Jesus Christ is doing in our lives. We leave the question open. And we hope. We don’t judge. We hope. We don’t dismiss. We hope. We don’t ignore, or fail to make Christ known as WE know him. We hope and we hope to not only make him known to them. We hope to know Him more fully as we come to know these others, who are also His beloved.
We started by talking about the moment that ordinary life gives way to song . The magic of that moment is, it seems to me, matched by the way that a song when a song ends, the feeling, the melody, the rhythm of the song lingers on and flavors the more mundane, prosaic parts of our lives. You know? How, having heard great music, we sometimes find that the “hook” - that’s what they call it - the “hook” of the song - has caught us and stayed with us and changed us somehow?
The scripture hymn ends, but with these encouraging words:
continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
The great songs - like this great hymn of the Cosmic Christ - burst into our consicousness and then, even after the song ends, we live with the words and music running underneath our everyday lives.
Christ is the image of the invisible God. Even when things seem alien to us, in Christ all things hold together. In Christ the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him God has reconciled all things to himself. We, who are reconciled through Christ, in our lives and in our words and in our prayers, go out into the world Christ created and redeemed as bearers of that song.
Hymn of the Cosmic Christ
Colossians 1:15-29
O What a beautiful morning, O what a beautiful day!
I think I’ve told you before how much I love the movie and theatre moments in which characters burst into song. Viewed from the grumpy side of life, those moments seem kind of silly and embarrassing. But they also represent a kind of border between the mundane and the spiritual. Between ordinary life and rapture. Between what can be rationally stated, and what must be heart-fully expressed.
Our scripture reading this morning represents on of those moments - when the enormity and beauty of what he wants to express overwhelms mere prose. And he breaks into song.
This first part of our scripture lesson is a hymn - a song - extolling Christ and expressing the wonder of what God has done for us through Christ. This hymn was most probably sung in the early church
(I think it’s worth a moment to think about the fact that as the church was getting started and spreading, one of the first things they did was compse hymns and sing. Writing creeds came much later. Even writing alot of the New Testament came later. Hymns came quickly and took hold - that’s how closely linked our faith is to our songs. That’s why what Betty and our other accompanists do is not just . . . entertain us or show their personal musical gifts. When she plays for us, Betty connects us to one of the most basic forms of Christian expression. And we should never take that for granted. Thank you Betty, for enabling us to sing!)
Theologians and Biblical scholars refer to this portion of scripture as the Hymn of the Cosmic Christ, because it attempts to express who the one we call Jesus is and was, not only in his earthly life, but in terms of cosmic time and the context of all of creation.
Christ is the image of the invisible God, it begins.
In Christ were all things created.
All things were created by Christ and for Christ.
And in Christ all things are held together.
For in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.
The majesty of creation is tied to the wonder of reconciliation in Christ Jesus our Lord.
A few weeks ago, I asked the congregation to fill out cards, with questions and issues that you would like addressed in sermons or bible studies. And I’ve been praying over those index cards, just keeping the faith of those writers and the themes they raised in mind as I planned for this fall.
And this week, as we continue to read in Colossians, I felt like the passage might help address one of the issues that were raised by thoughtful, faithful people. (Actualy, I thought I might address two of the questions, but the sermon got too long so I’m putting question #2 - about discerning God’s will back to be addressed more fully later.) One was about how we think about other religions, and whether or not God grants eteranal life to anyone but those who are Christians. What about good Buddhists? Good Jewish people? Good and devout Muslims? In our increasingly connected world, these questions take on some urgency. We see these people on tv. We read about them in books and on line. Doesn’t God love and care for them? Does God reject them because they do not call on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ?
Haven’t alot of us thought about that? People of faith, theologians and philosophers have spent alot of time thinking about that question. And this passage is one of the ones that they consider in that regard. Because it opens up a vision of Christ and an expression of the scope of His work that gives us a different vantage point or perspective on questions about God and other religions.
On the one hand, the hymn affirms that it is in Christ Jesus that we know God. He is the image - the mirror - the reflection - the representation - of Almighty God. In human form, God was pleased to dwell. We get much the same language in the first chapter of the Gospel of John- the Word became flesh and dwelt among us - the fullness of Grace and Truth. Christ is unique and we cannot know God apart from Him.
But, amazingly, as music sometimes can, the hymn also pulls us what feels like the opposite direction: Christ was present at the dawn of creation and EVERYTHING that was created was created by and for Him. Our Lord is not just a teacher in Palestine who founded a nice religion - one among many others, which are now in some sort of contest to see who can get the most votes in a worldwide “Earth’s Got Religion”. Christ created the earth, and holds together that creation. Which makes us think, well, Christ can and will work in and through all things to accomplish God’s purpose. In all humility, know that God is God, we have to allow for the possibility that Christ is working in and through in other peole, even of other religions, to care for and love and reconcile people to Himself. The Bible doesn’t just say, Everyone must believe in Jesus. It also says, with equal strength and power, “Through Christ God was pleased (past tense, you guys - Christ’s reconciling work is accomplished) to reconcile ALL THINGS to himself.
One of the ways that Reformed theology differs from Baptist and Anabaptist and New Wave popular TV evangelist theology is that our flavor of Christianity has also carried the insistence that God is free and God can and will “save” those whom God chooses, that it is not up to us to win or earn our salvation by works or any other way. Presbyterians have taken seriously that grace is a gift. And we respect God enough to think that God can and will give that gift out to whomever God wants.
And Christ’s own mission and ministry seem to point to God’s great desire to give it away to all. There is not an ethnic group Jesus leaves out, not a gender group he favors, not a religious boundary he encounters that he doesn’t cross, not a moral failure that is beyond his forgiveness. God’s grace is offered to all. Even to those who reject him and crucifed him. As he was dying - hanging on the cross that saves us - Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” Those words are our ultimate hope and our ultimate assurance that we ourselves are saved.
Now - taken to the extreme - this thought has given rise to the position we call Universalism. The theological position that God saves everyone, no matter what, because God’s love is so great that no one has the power to overcome or reject it.
Presbyterians are not universalists. One of our greatest theologians, Karl Barth, puts it this way: "The proclamation of the Church must make allowance for this freedom of grace. Apokatastasis Panton? No, for a grace which automatically would ultimately have to embrace each and every one would certainly not be free grace. It surely would not be God's grace. But would it be God's free grace if we could absolutely deny that it could do that? Has Christ been sacrificed only for our sins? Has he not ... been sacrificed for the whole world? ... [Thus] the freedom of grace is preserved on both these sides." [5]
For Barth, then, and for Reformed and Presbyterian Christians, the place we wind up is held in the same creative tension that we find in this hymn: Faith in Christ means that we can neither affirm nor deny the possibility that all will be saved.
So what can we do? Our answer is clear: we can hope (see CD IV/3, pp. 477-78). [6]
We can cling to Christ and the hope that he offers for our lives only as deeply and fervently as we offer and embody that hope in a world that clearly stands in need of his mercy and grace.
When we encounter people of other faiths, we look for Christ’s reconciling work in them, we have faith that Christ is there - because Christ is everywhere! - and we give thanks for that work, no matter who seems to be involved in it. We don’t presume to know what God is doing in their lives, even as we share with them the good news of what Jesus Christ is doing in our lives. We leave the question open. And we hope. We don’t judge. We hope. We don’t dismiss. We hope. We don’t ignore, or fail to make Christ known as WE know him. We hope and we hope to not only make him known to them. We hope to know Him more fully as we come to know these others, who are also His beloved.
We started by talking about the moment that ordinary life gives way to song . The magic of that moment is, it seems to me, matched by the way that a song when a song ends, the feeling, the melody, the rhythm of the song lingers on and flavors the more mundane, prosaic parts of our lives. You know? How, having heard great music, we sometimes find that the “hook” - that’s what they call it - the “hook” of the song - has caught us and stayed with us and changed us somehow?
The scripture hymn ends, but with these encouraging words:
continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
The great songs - like this great hymn of the Cosmic Christ - burst into our consicousness and then, even after the song ends, we live with the words and music running underneath our everyday lives.
Christ is the image of the invisible God. Even when things seem alien to us, in Christ all things hold together. In Christ the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him God has reconciled all things to himself. We, who are reconciled through Christ, in our lives and in our words and in our prayers, go out into the world Christ created and redeemed as bearers of that song.
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