A Taste of Freedom

We cannot conjure God up anymore than we can fix ourselves. We can only learn to rest and consent to the presence and expression of God within us. That kind of faith leads us to vast openness and incredible freedom.

By Lyndon Marcotte

Proper 7 / Ordinary 12 / Pentecost +5
Galatians 3:23-29

23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Paul implies that this faith has a liberating quality to it, that it is a means of liberation and opening to a type of freedom that we had not yet experienced. Unfortunately, many people have not experienced liberation through their experience of the Christian faith, at least not as it’s being popularly presented in the West. If anything, people are leaving the church en mass, precisely because of the constraints and oppression they have perceived coming from within the church

Many non-Christians have rejected Christianity and built up resistance to any expression of it because they view the church as narrow minded, too rigid, out of date, oppressive, or simply out to ruin their fun. Establishment Christians choose to right those people off as non-believers and simply to say that they are going to hell, as a way of dismissing them. That’s one group, but the phenomenon the church has yet to come to grips with is the thousands of people who are believing Christians that grew up in the church, but are leaving in droves for the same reasons. Those Christians are disappointed and disillusioned because despite their most devout efforts they simply cannot live up to the unrealistic expectations that they themselves have helped to establish in the church. Many of those Christians have discovered that alas they are only human, but the church has not  given them permission to be precisely that. If the incarnation of God in Christ teaches us anything, it is the dignity and extraordinary privilege of being human, but rather than uphold Jesus as a model of humanity that leads to freedom, far too often the church has held Jesus up as a model of divinity that should shame us for being who we are. We are missing the message and model of liberation that is fully available in Christ. What angered Paul in Galatia is that those who were followers of Christ were actually causing division, excluding people from the life of faith, and leading others astray with their attempts to be religious instead of being like Christ.

Paul says that prior to this faith we were “held prisoners by the law… locked up.” If you go back a few verses he also describes our state prior to the law as “prisoners of sin.” He’s saying that we exchanged one set of shackles for another. Initially we were held captive by our sin, following every whim and desire, seeking fulfillment and lasting happiness in things and experiences that are not only temporary but empty of lasting joy. However, many people who come to faith simply swap the handcuffs of sensual pleasure for the ball and chain of legalism and morality. Bondage by any other name is still bondage.

Far too often the only thing people can tell you about the church is the list of do’s and don’ts. You should go to church, “get saved,” “get dunked,” put money in the plate, eat the bread, drink the juice, and go along with the program. You also shouldn’t cuss, drink, steal, cheat, or doubt. This basically sums up the totality of the Christian faith for many people. Sadly, it’s just empty rules and ideology. There’s no life in it and certainly no freedom. To be quite honest, religious institutions have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. It’s basic self-preservation. If there are rules you must follow and the church is the place that tells you what they are and whether or not you’re doing it right, that preserves power and control. That worked for a very long time. Sure, there have always been unique places out in the desert, tucked away in caves, secluded in monasteries, and hidden in forests where people were “working out their own salvation,” but by and large, the church controlled the message and the method. From time to time people got out of line and bucked the system. They usually died for it or at the very least were excommunicated and exiled from the community of faith. That worked as long as the church had power over people, but now in this postmodern era the church is no longer the center of authority in our culture. The lion has lost its teeth. Scandals have certainly done their share of damage to the voice of the church in our culture, but nothing has been more damaging to the credibility of the church than irrelevance. People have not only left because they are disillusioned, but worse, they are disinterested.

Remarkably, Paul actually says that the law is useful and has a purpose in helping us to find freedom. One translation says that we are “in custody” under the law. That far from being this abusive jailer that torments us for our weaknesses, there is this parental quality to the rules that served as our guardian until Christ appeared. We can understand that from the perspective of being a child and also raising our own. We need rules and people in authority over us to keep us safe until we come of age and maturity. The bumpers in the bowling alley help us keep the ball moving in the right direction. The training wheels help us find our balance. The braces straighten our teeth, but the older we get the more we resist the restraints we find ourselves in. Paul is saying that the law has kept us safe, has guided us, and led us within earshot of the words of Christ. He says “now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”

The baby grows up. The bird leaves the nest. We aren’t static. We are constantly changing, growing, maturing, and becoming. The law was useful. It got us through the wilderness to the Jordan River. It kept us safe through our rebellious teenage years, but now we have come of age so to speak. When we come to faith in Christ, we’re not above the law but follow a higher standard which is love. So we no longer lie, cheat, or steal because the rules say it’s wrong. We don’t lie, cheat, or steal because it’s not loving, and it goes against the nature of Christ within us. We don’t go to church, read the Bible, or pray because we have to, we do these things because we want to, because we find value in these practices for strengthening the expression of our faith. A shift has occurred… a change, a conversion. That conversion isn’t from the old rules to the new rules that are are just kinder and gentler.

Salvation is the gift of God that sets us free from a life of obligation to a life of privilege. Faith isn’t a new and improved theology of God and sin. It’s not an idea or a spiritual substance you either have or you don’t. Faith is trust. It is letting go, relinquishing control and the struggle to live up to an impossible standard. It is taking God at His word when He says that what He made is good, including us. It is believing His good word about us that we are made in His likeness. It is realizing that our bodies truly are the temples that God abides in, expresses His being through, and accomplishes His will with. It is resigning that we cannot conjure God up anymore than we can fix ourselves. We can only learn to rest and consent to the presence and expression of God within us. That kind of faith leads us to vast openness and incredible freedom, but that kind of faith is threatening to many people precisely because it cannot be controlled. Jesus said the wind blows where it will. You can’t tell where it’s coming from or where it’s going, and so it is with the Spirit.

Far too often instead of introducing people to this life of freedom in Christ, the church has further divided people into insiders and outsiders, saved or lost, or in Paul’s day Jew or Gentile, slave or free, and male or female. Paul says that our baptism is not an initiation into an exclusive community. It is death. We die with Christ, die to the old self with its bondage to sin and the law, but we are also resurrected with Christ to walk in the newness of life. That it all becomes new. The shackles are broken, and we are set free.

He says  that we have been “clothed with Christ,” all of us who come to the waters of our baptism. It reminds me of the scene from the movie “Oh, Brother Where Art Thou” where all of the faithful are dressed in white marching down to the river together, singing old spirituals in unison. There is a unifying quality to sharing our brokenness and owning our vulnerability, in realizing that we have all sinned, all fallen short, that we are all so ruined and so loved. Paul says that we have not just changed our outward appearance but that through this faith, this trusting, this letting go, we have become “one in Christ” and that we “belong to Christ.” We are no longer slaves to sin or the law but are children of God. We have received the Spirit of adoption and become “heirs to the promise” of God.

This is the truly liberating and unifying effect of the kind of faith that Paul is trying to proclaim. There’s no use and no time for petty disagreements, theological wrangling, and worn out differences. Christ did not live and die for us to be right and prove everyone else   wrong. He did not come to take one yoke from our necks only to tie a millstone in its place. The Church is the body of Christ, the message and the steward of His grace. We are members of that body. We have the incredible capacity and possibility to heal or to hurt, to judge or to forgive, to cause division or promote peace.

Link

The Passion

This is sermon was preceded by a reading of John 18-19 in their entirety and delivered on Palm Sunday 3/24/13. I argue that Protestants need crucifixes, frequently mention Mary, describe Lectio Divina, talk about the necessity of suffering, and the humanity of Jesus, and I wonder why my congregation says I’m the most Catholic Baptist preacher they’ve ever heard.

http://wordslessspoken.com/podcast/The Passion.mp3

Contemplation

“Contemplation is a way to describe what Jesus did in the desert. It is not learning as much as it is unlearning. It is not explaining as much as containing and receiving everything, and holding onto nothing. It is refusing to judge too quickly and refining your own thoughts and feelings by calm observation and awareness over time—in the light of the Big Picture.”

– Richard Rohr

3 Magi, 2 Kings, 1 Star

By Lyndon Marcotte, Sermons Online

Epiphany A, B, C
Matthew 2:1-12

My earliest memories of the nativity were life size plastic characters with light bulbs inside that stood in a gigantic wooden manger that my grandfather built and put out in the front yard every Christmas. I remember the wise men most because they were the tallest figures in the scene and taller than me. The funny thing is that in reality the wise men were not in the manger scene at all. They came later. How much later is up for speculation. Most scholars believe it could have been as much as two years later before they arrived in search of the newborn king, although we celebrate Epiphany as the 12^th day of Christmas when the Magi are believed to have appeared.

Our Christmas traditions are really a mix of different cultural traditions that have been borrowed and adapted many times over many years. It’s funny how just this last year a couple new holiday movies have changed my kids’ ideas about some things about Christmas, including how many reindeer there really are and that Santa Claus has jet engines on his sleigh.

We know that Jesus wasn’t really born on December 25^th.  It’s a day that’s been set aside to commemorate his birth. It was actually a compromise by the church in the middle ages. After fighting the pagan customs and holiday observances to no avail, the church decided if you can’t beat em, join em. So they chose to observe the birth of Jesus during the same time as the pagan festivals. If you can’t stop them, maybe they can tone them down a little and redirect their revelry to more wholesome causes. The irony is that for all the fuss about keeping Christ in Christmas it really should be about putting Christ in Christmas.

You see living the Christian life isn’t about maintaining this pristine, pure doctrine and way of life, letting nothing common or ordinary ever defile it. It’s about taking all of life, as messy and ugly as it may be at times, and infusing it with the presence of Christ.

Last week we discovered how shepherds were among the most unlikely and untrustworthy people to be trusted as messengers in days when Jesus was born. These Magi from the east are no more religious or saintly than they were.

Despite the Christmas carols that we sing, Magi weren’t really kings at all. The only kings in this story are Herod, king of the Jews, and Christ the King. Magi were not necessarily wise either. It’s a really polite and civil description that comes from the time of King James and the translation of the Bible that he commissioned. In fact the Magi were actually astrologers. No, not astronomers like scientists that we think of today. They were astrologers, fortune tellers. Not unlike those who write horoscopes today and tell you all about what your sign is and what that means. Magi observed the stars and used them as a guide for signs.

One particular night however when they were studying the heavens as they did on every other night, they noticed an unusual star that appeared in the sky and shone brighter than all the other stars. It was so sudden and different that they were certain that it meant something very significant. They believed that a great King had been born, and they left home and livelihood to go west in search of him.

When they came to Jerusalem, the capital of this foreign land, looking for the king, they were sent to King Herod, a jealous, power hungry, paranoid ruler of a subjugated people. This was actually a province of Rome and under Roman rule, but in order to keep the peace and prevent a revolt the Romans used local rulers to keep a resemblance of local government and authority to keep the peace, as long as the taxes were paid on schedule. He is a tyrant who lords over those he rules rather than serving them. He is not a ruler who “shepherds” God’s people.

By contrast, the infant king Jesus is helpless and vulnerable, a ruler whose power is hidden in humility. The wise men in Matthew 2 are the chief priests and the scribes who function as Herod’s key advisors. Learned in the scriptures, they possess academic knowledge that both Herod and the magi lack. But what good does it do them? It does not lead them to their Messiah but causes them to become involved in a plot to kill him.

The magi are examples for who follow Christ today. They are depicted as persons who:

• who do as they are instructed,
• who seek no honor for themselves, and
• who gladly humble themselves, kneeling even before a woman and a child.

Clearly, they fit the image of servants better than that of kings.

The gifts they gave are symbolic of who this baby would become:

• Gold for a King to reign over His Father’s kingdom
• Frankincense for a Priest to teach a higher law & intercede with God for us
• Myrrh for a Savior who would die for the sins of mankind

We must welcome this Christ-child into our lives as our King, our Intercessor, and our Savior.

The church’s observance of epiphany should not be a triumphal occasion for those who have seen the light to celebrate their privileged status over others. The lessons of epiphany encourage humble admission that God’s glory is often manifested where we least expect it.

Working Out Our Salvation

We spend a large portion of our lives trying to figure out what it means to be ourselves. There are so many pressures placed upon us from a very young age. Family, friends, community, and culture all play a part in shaping us and forming our identity. It can be quite a confusing time growing up and very easy to get caught up and just go with flow, doing what everyone else is doing.

Many of us found a way out of the madness and began to sort that out when we came to faith in Christ. We came to see ourselves instead in light of what God says about us in His Word, but that is not a simple process. In fact we are all still “working out our salvation with fear and trembling,” not working for our salvation but working out our salvation. That is a process, a journey, that once you being will take a lifetime to complete.

It’s not as simple as saying this is what a Christian looks like, this is what they believe, and this is what they do or don’t do. We don’t give up our individuality when we come to faith in Christ. We have to work with our personalities, our family history, our abilities, and our weaknesses. We all live out our faith through the perspective of who we are and God’s unfolding grace in our lives. Being a Christian is less about what religion you belong to and more about who’s voice you listen to. It is first and foremost a relationship with Jesus.

We know from the Gospels and our own life that this faith journey can take some often unexpected turns and twists. It is not always easy nor always comfortable. Often times if we are truly listening for His voice and trying to be like Christ, it will challenge us very deeply and cause us to take a long hard look at who we really are and who He knows we can be.

We don’t hold ourselves out before others as those who are perfect, who always get it right, who have all the answers. We offer our lives, our failures, and our imperfections as living examples of God’s grace at work in us. We are not what we once were, and by His grace we are not yet what we will be. We are all on this journey together. We should help one another, encourage one another, and help each other get up when we fall down. We should not judge one another or argue over petty things that don’t matter. We should look for ways to work together and to share His love with other Christians and especially those who have yet to come to faith in Christ. When we live honest and authentic lives, bearing our wounds before others as Christ bore His, we become more than we are, and God works through us to love and reach others. This really is the great adventure!

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

By Lyndon Marcotte, Contemplative Corner

Proper 12A/ Ordinary 17A
Romans 8:26-39

It’s amazing to me that despite all of our education, technology, and knowledge of scripture so many people, including Christians, still believe that bad things are supposed to happen to bad people and good things are supposed to happen to good people. So whenever something bad happens in our lives, we immediately assume that we’ve done something to deserve it, and when something tragic happens to the innocent, it throws not only our lives but our faith into a tailspin.

It’s not a question of if bad things will happen but rather when bad things will happen. In Matt.5:45 Jesus said, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” None of us are immune from difficulties or hard times. However, you can greatly increase your chances of having hardship if you choose to do evil instead of good. If you want to get mixed up with the wrong crowd, break the law, or hurt other people you will greatly increase the likelihood that your life will be full of misery, but that’s not what keeps us up at night. We don’t worry when troublemakers fall on hard times. We assume they brought it on themselves and maybe even deserve it, but when bad things happen to good people, especially ourselves, we have a crisis of faith.

Job dared to protest and take his case straight to the top. He said that this wasn’t right. It’s not how this is supposed to be, and he demanded answers, but he didn’t get an easy answer to the cause of suffering. Instead God answered Job’s questioning with questions of His own. In the end of the book of Job suffering is a deep, unfathomable mystery, and it is a part of life. Part of what makes us human is the ability to face suffering and overcome it.

So when you come to these verses in Romans, Paul is specifically addressing Christians who are suffering for their faith in Christ, but if you are looking for an answer to why we suffer, you won’t find it. You also won’t find a “how to” manual to end your suffering. These verses don’t teach us what we must do to end our suffering. Instead we find what God says He will do when we are suffering.

Three Promises to Cling to in Difficult Times:

1. The Holy Spirit helps us when we cannot help ourselves.

It is a lie that “God helps those who help themselves.” The Gospel is that God helps those who cannot help themselves. Jesus passionately took up the cause of the helpless and the marginalized… the least, the lost, and the lonely.

There are times when we feel so utterly helpless we don’t know what to do or even how to pray in those situations. We know that God is always present and always with us, but it is at those times when we are most alone and most helpless we are most aware of our need of God and His presence and His love expressed through others around us is often the only thing that sustains us.

This is a promise that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us and prays for us when we cannot pray for ourselves. There are times when words fail us and there are no words adequate to convey the depth of our pain or feelings.

Once Mother Theresa was asked what she said when she prayed. She answered that she didn’t say anything, she listened. When asked what God said to her, she said that God didn’t say anything; He listened back.

God listens to us. He hears us. He knows what we’re going through. Even though we may not see it in the moment, He upholds us and sustains us through the darkest hours. We are never truly alone, especially in our suffering

2. God can use any circumstance for our good and for His glory.

Romans 8:28 is really one of those “life preserver” verses in the Bible. It’s one of those promises you cling to when it seems like you’ve got nothing left. “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.”

There have been occasions when my faith has failed and withered up to nothing, yet a promise like this becomes a stubborn refusal to accept the mess we’re in as the way things are. It was that kind of gut level faith that drove Job to persist through his suffering and refuse to accept it. This may be a defining moment in our life, but it will not define us. We are more than our pain, more than our suffering. In times like these we draw upon a strength not of ourselves to get through them.

John Maxwell talks about Failing Forward in his book of the same name. It’s all about learning from our mistakes and failures. He says when you’ve fallen on your face flat on the floor, while you’re down there pick something up so it won’t be a wasted trip. The idea is to learn from the experience and use it to make you better. I think the same should be said of our suffering.

Suffering should never be a wasted experience in our lives. It may not be pleasant and something we never wish to experience again, but at the very least use that pain and experience to propel us forward. When we look back on our lives, it is the hard times that really shape and make us into who we are. We all carry wounds and scars, so did Jesus. That’s what makes us human and being willing to show those to others makes us truly Christian.

The idea of being predestined here is not about some being “in” and others being “out” – too many theologians have spent far too much time on this idea, coming up with convoluted explanations of things like “double predestination,” where those who are doomed to Hell go there no matter what, and the Elect are chosen whether they like it or not. – John Harrison

Our “destiny”, i.e. God’s plan for our lives, is that we would know Him, that we would love Him and love others as He has loved us. In that sense we are all “predestined,” specifically God wants us to take on the likeness of His Son whom Paul called the first among many more to come. That is to say, God wants us to be like Jesus. He will use every circumstance in our life, whether good or bad, to shape us, to build us up, to encourage us, and to make us more and more into the image of Jesus.

3. Nothing and no one will ever separate us from the love of God.

God’s answer to our suffering is most clearly seen in the cross of Jesus Christ. God answered our suffering in the death of Jesus, “I will suffer with you.” Jesus did not come into the world to end all suffering and death in this life. He came into the world to suffer with us and for us. He came to redeem even our suffering, so that we do not suffer alone and never again suffer without hope.

So many people imagine that God is sitting on the edge of His seat waiting to strike us with lightning bolts every time we mess up. Ezekiel 18:23 says that God doesn’t take pleasure in the death of even the wicked. Surely, he doesn’t take pleasure in our failures or our suffering either. The Gospel says that God is sitting on the edge of His seat waiting to forgive us, to heal us, to restore us, to love us… not to harm us, not to punish us.

Even when Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem to facing death He said of those who would soon kill Him, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,” Luke 13:34.

God is stubborn and relentless in His love for us. The Bible is clear that He is on our side, on all of our sides. He is cheering for each us to be who He knows we can be. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever separate us from His love for us:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There is no sin that can stop God from loving you. No failure, no mistake so large that God will give up on you. There is no disease that can make you unlovely to Him. No distance you can run that His love will not find you. There is no pain so great that could numb His love from touching you. Lastly, there is no death that will ever separate us from Him.

These are the promises we cling to. This is the God who loves us, who suffers with us and for us, who upholds us when we cannot stand alone. May we rest in Him.

Simple Church: The Bride of Christ

By Lyndon Marcotte, Contemplative Corner

Matthew 28:16-20

We’ve been talking throughout the month about what it means to be the Church. At its most basic level, what does it mean to be the Church? It’s easy to be caught up in trends and cultural definitions of what the Church is, but what does the Bible say?

We’ve identified dynamics that are characteristic of a Simple Church: Upward, Inward, Outward, and Forward. The images and names used in the New Testament give us insights into how these four dynamics work in the Church:

We grow Upward, as a House of Prayer. We grow Inward, as the Family of God. We grow Outward, as the Body of Christ. We go Forward, as the Bride of Christ.

The first three must be present in order for the church to go forward into growth and maturity. We’re not talking about just growing in numbers. Any organization can do that, but we grow in spiritual maturity together as a Church when we grow Upward in our relationship to God, when we grow Inward in our relationship to one another, and when we grow Outward in our relationship to our community. When we do all three, we experience spiritual maturity that enables us to go Forward to be a Church that God uses for His glory to make an impact on the lives of others.

The term the Bride of Christ isn’t used directly in the New Testament to describe the Church, but it is implied in several texts: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready,” Rev.19:7. The Gospels also refer to Jesus as the Bridge groom, implying he has a bride, and in Ephesians Paul compares the union of husband and wife to Christ and the Church.

I think the Bride of Christ is the image that is most personal and most descriptive of the Church fulfilling the potential of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. All the preparations have been made, everything is in place to go forward into a deeper walk with Christ and experience the fullness of that relationship in the world.

I personally think that some weddings go overboard with pomp and circumstance, but you need a certain measure of decorum to signify what the importance of the occasion. I mean, if the bride showed up late for the wedding and came dragging down the aisle in sweatpants & a t-shirt like she just rolled out of bed, then got to the altar and said, “can we hurry up? I’m hungry and the game’s about to come on,” I think most grooms would be right to assume, “you know, I’m not sure, but I don’t think she’s really serious about this.”

Jesus told Peter, “if you love me, feed My sheep.” If you really love me, love My people. John tells us in 1 John, if you really love God, then love one another. We know from the New Testament that we can’t be selective in who we love and how much we love them. If we are serious about God and being followers of Christ, this is what it looks like.

Over the years, I’ve heard people make critical comments about churches and preachers, “All he ever preaches about is love, love, love… love God, love everybody. Let’s all just love…” as though that were a bad thing, as if there were any other message. If we could just get that one, we wouldn’t need any others. That’s exactly what Jesus said when they asked him, “What’s the most important commandment?” He said all the law and the prophets hang on these two: Love God, Love one another. That’s it. There is no other message.

It’s easy to look down your nose at someone else and judge them. It’s easy to talk about sin and end times, and make ourselves look better than all those ignorant sinners out there. It’s quite another thing to look in the mirror and see ourselves as we are and to see one another as we are, warts and all, and choose to love each other anyway. Jesus didn’t live and die on the cross, so we could tell everyone how horrible they are and how God wants to roast them in hell forever, unless they believe like us, dress like us, act like us, worship like us… We’re NOT the insiders who have the inside track on eternal salvation. On our best day, we are beggars telling other beggars where we found bread. Jesus died to show us this is what love looks like. This is the message. That you don’t fight ignorance with arguments. You don’t overcome violence with violence. You don’t fix loneliness and heartache with orthodoxy. Love doesn’t come with limits. If it has limits, it’s not really love. This is what love looks like… “Greater love has no man than this, that you lay down your life for another.”

The goal for a New Testament Church isn’t to be big and have lots of people, lots of money, and lots of activity. That’s not what it’s about. The goal, the purpose of the Church, is to love God, love one another, love your community, and grow in grace with God and one another. When your heart is in the right place and your priorities are lined up with God’s plan, as found in scripture, spiritual growth and maturity are sure to follow.

The hard lesson that I had to learn over the years in the church is that a lot of people in the church aren’t really interested in spiritual maturity. They just like to see most of the pews and offering plates filled.

A lot of people aren’t really interested in reaching their community. They’re just interested in having a good reputation in the community.

A lot of people aren’t interested in loving one another and being church to one another. They just want people to think good things about them and stay out of their business.

A lot of people aren’t really interested in knowing God and growing closer to Him. They just want to be entertained and have some measure of peace that they’ll go to some celestial palace when they die.

I’m not being mean. I’m being honest, and not only have I met those kinds of people in the church, from time to time, I’ve been those kinds of people. My heart hasn’t always been in the right place, all the time. Believe it or not, from time to time, I’ve liked to think that it was all about me. There have been times when I wasn’t all that concerned with spiritual maturity, and growing closer to God and others. It’s not that we have ill intentions. Most of the time we’re just busy or distracted with bills, jobs, family, health, etc. that we lose our focus and take our eyes off the prize. For some of us those moments may last a few hours, a few days, a few months, or longer, but we need to be reminded. We need to re-commit to the purpose and plan that God has for us and for His church.

This is a picture of the potential that we have in Christ. It’s a picture of who Jesus knew the Church could be. It’s up to us to decide if we’ll live up to that potential. Are we going to be the person, the people, and the Church that honors God, loves one another, and loves the community and the world that God placed us in? Are we just going to make this all about us? We need to make that choice today… and tomorrow… and the next day…

Simple Church: The Family of God

By Lyndon Marcotte, Contemplative Corner

1 John 3:1,2, 11-18

We’ve been talking about getting back to a basic understanding of what the Church is supposed to be. We are look at four aspects of what we are to called to be about as the Church based on the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. We looked at the Great Commandment to love God as the upward dynamic in the life of the Church that we experience as the House of Prayer. This week we look at the 2nd part of the Great Commandment: “Love your neighbor as your self,” Matthew 22:39. We describe that inward dynamic in the life of the Church as the “Family of God.”

The “Family of God” is a phrase not found in most of our Bibles, except once in the NIV, but much more common is the expression the “children of God,” especially in 1 John. That is precisely what makes connects us in the family of God; we have the same heavenly Father, so we are kin, you and I. We are not just members of the same organization. We are members of the same family.

Like families we have relationships.

If we were to go to the theater this afternoon to catch a Sunday afternoon matinee, we could share the same laughs, thrills, and emotions, watching the same movie together but leave the theater not having known a single person in the building, even though we share a common experience for two hours.

Likewise, being the Church isn’t just showing up at the same place at the same time week after week watching the same show. Being Church to one another is about being in relationship with one another, living in community, and sharing fellowship.

Like families we have issues.

I will save you a lot of time and gas money by letting you in on a secret. There are no perfect churches… anywhere, but if by some chance you were to actually find one, whatever you do, don’t join it, or you will surely mess up a miraculous thing.

A teacher of mine says that the reason our parents and siblings know how to push all our buttons is because they installed them. There is a lot of truth in that recognition. Someone once said we are like porcupines trying to huddle together to keep warm in the winter, but we keep poking each other every time we get close. That is the nature of being human and being in relationship with others. Just because we’re in the Church doesn’t mean we leave our personalities, our egos, or our life experiences at the door. They are part of who we are and also part of what God uses to shape us into who He has called us to be.

Part of growing up and becoming an adult is having to face reality. One of the realities we experience that comes as quite a shock to some of us is that families aren’t perfect. In fact they may have a lot of relationship issues and personality conflicts that we were oblivious to as children. We have our own issues and problems that we bring to the mix also. The point being that we realize that none of us are perfect. Realizing that we are all imperfect people is also the first step toward being reconciled to God.

We are here in the Church to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We have not arrived. We are not what we were, but for the grace of God we are not yet what we will become. We are works in progress. This is a construction site. God is at work here in us. It is not always a comfortable or quiet process.

Like families we have responsibilities to each other.

The Inward value is expressed by love for one another in the church. Not only does 1 John talk about the “children of God” more than any other book of the Bible, it says over and over again that as the children of God we are to love another.

Like all parents I hope that my children will be safe and will live up to their potential, but I also hope that would enjoy each other’s presence. It’s good that they don’t kill each other, but we hope for so much more, that they would actually love each other. Our heavenly Father wants the same for us.

As members of the same family, we have responsibilities to one another:
• To love one another
• To help one another
• To encourage one another
• To bring out the best in one another
• To restore one another when we’ve failed
• To carry each other’s burdens when they’re too heavy
• To share with one another when we’re in need

In order for healthy relationships to happen, we have to be intentional in our actions. Real fellowship, real Biblical community doesn’t just happen on it’s own. In fact, if you do nothing and make no effort, divisions and strife will spring up like weeds in a garden. You don’t have to do anything to grow weeds, but you have to be intentional if you want to bear fruit.

I want to challenge you to make an effort to:
• Get to know others in the church that you may not know very well. Share a meal.
• Be kind always, guard your tongue. Salt water and fresh water can’t flow from the same well.
• Encourage one another, bring out the best in each other, as iron sharpens iron.
• Include guests and new people as you would old friends. Don’t take for granted that people will feel at home and welcome. Make an effort to make them a part of this fellowship.
• Look for ways to help one another. If you see a need, do whatever is in your power to fill it.

We all know to do these things, but we need to be reminded to make an effort and not take them for granted. Healthy relationships in our lives don’t happen by accident. They happen with intention and by the grace of God.

Simple Church: A House of Prayer

By Lyndon Marcotte, Contemplative Corner

Mark 11:12-21

An artist said that to make a sculpture he takes away everything that doesn’t look like the final product in his mind. To get back to a simple church we must take away everything that doesn’t belong, everything that preoccupies our attention and wastes our time and efforts, until we are focused intently on what God has called us to be.

A Simple Church is one that mirrors the holy dance of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, infused with the presence of Christ. There are four values that must be present and at work in a healthy church: Upward, Inward, Outward, and Forward. The church embodies the Upward dynamic as a House of Prayer. The Inward dynamic is experienced in the Family of God. The Outward dynamic is demonstrated as Followers of Christ. The Forward dynamic is realized as the Body of Christ. Today, we want to look at that first reality of the Church as a House of Prayer.

This encounter of Jesus in the temple follows his “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem on what we know as Palm Sunday. Some have said that this is Jesus having a really bad day or the one time that Jesus got really mad. I don’t think either of those are true. Jesus intended to do exactly what he did, and the incident with the fig tree on the way to Jerusalem is directly related to what happened when he got to the temple.

The first thing that jumps off the page as we read about Jesus coming to the fig tree is that “it was not the season for figs,” yet Jesus expected to find figs there anyway? That sticks in my mind and can’t be overlooked. That doesn’t seem fair, does it? Jesus knew what time of year it was. Even more shocking is Jesus’ reaction to the barren tree, cursing it to be barren. What happened to the kind and gentle Jesus? Who is this guy? What’s going on here?

It might help us in reading this passage to know that the fig tree was a symbol for Israel. The prophets that came before Jesus and paved the way for His coming prophesied over and over for the people to repent and return to God in faithfulness, to stop trying to be like all the other nations and people around them and live the unique life as the people of God they were destined to be.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem he found that it was apparently not the season for prayer either. When He arrived on Palm Sunday, from first glance it appears that everyone is on his side, greeting him with a ticket-tape parade, but these same people would be the ones to crucify him soon thereafter. What they were really cheering for is someone to lead a revolution against the Romans and run them out of town, but Jesus came in peace riding on a colt as a sign of peace.

When Jesus came to the temple the next day, He did not find people prostrated in prayer and worship, welcoming in the stranger and the outcast. He found a big business going on, people being exploited by religious leaders, and people being excluded from worship. When people came worship and offer sacrifices, it was a principle that they should offer the first-fruits of their possessions not the worst they had. It was the duty of the priests to make sure the sacrifices were acceptable, that they were not sick or deformed. Others were very poor or only had produce and crops to offer as sacrifices, which were traded for animal sacrifices, even doves. This system had changed significantly over time and became very corrupt. When people came to offer sacrifices, they were met with the salesmen on the temple steps. People were forced to buy “temple-approved” sacrifices from the “church bookstore.” The prices were inflated and the trading was unfair. It exploited people who came to worship for money and excluded people who were poor and had no means to trade.

It was this corrupt system that Jesus walked into that upset him so badly, that the temple had become a big business and people were being excluded from worship. Likewise, the church has become a big business in many places. It has become an entertainment destination for thousands, and in many cases functions as anything but a House of Prayer.

We’ve all seen the televangelists crusades on TV. They bring the sick and disabled up on stage to pray for them to receive healing, and most of the time they claim to have some miracle take place, but what the cameras don’t show you are the dozens and sometimes hundreds of people lining the walls and back of the arenas lying on hospital beds, slouched over in wheelchairs hoping to receive a miracle. People are unloaded from vans on stretchers like a trauma unit desperately seeking a miracle. What they also don’t show you on TV are the buckets being passed up and down the aisles raking in piles of cash to pay for the tailored suits, luxury cars, mansions, and private jets of the “ministers.”

What grieved the heart of Jesus most was people going through the motions playing church, exploiting people’s desperation for profit. While we may take comfort in knowing that we don’t act like those televangelists, I think anytime the church functions as anything but a house of prayer it grieves the heart of God. This isn’t a civic organization. It’s not a country club. It’s not an entertainment destination. It’s not the place to score points with God and others. It is a house of prayer, first and foremost.

I remind myself often that people don’t come to hear me. They come to hear from God, to worship, to experience the presence of God. We should do our best to get out of the way and let that happen without interjection ourselves and our egos in the way.

The Upward value is the regular experience of God. The church works when people encounter Him; they fail when the church simply goes through religious motions, praying religious prayers. The kind of encounter with God is based on an authentic passion for Him, a desire to be with Him, and desire to share what He is doing with others.

The ultimate purpose of the Church is to know Christ, the Head of the church, becoming like Him. It is a place where the people of God participate with God and one another in His holy dance. Basic Christian community is not simply a method or an option for the Church. It is a way to experience and know who God is.

Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.” The presence of Christ is already in the midst of the Church. His presence is a gift to us and is what allows the Church to experience relationship with God and one another. Without the empowering presence of Christ in His body, the Church, it is just another non-profit organization and has no life. The presence of Christ is the only unique contribution the Church has to offer the world. It is what separates the Church from every organization doing good deeds all over the world.

The most important thing to look for when you come to church isn’t:

• Did they sing the songs I like?
• Did the preacher keep my attention and make me laugh?
• Did everything flow seamlessly without interruption?
• Was there good attendance? Was the offering good?

The only criteria for whether or not we have gathered in vain is did we experience the presence of God? Did we hear from Him? Did we encounter Christ today? Whether in a verse of a song, a Sunday School lesson, a sermon, or a hug from a friend.

If the presence of God is present in our churches, if we lift Him up and keep our focus, you won’t need gimmicks, bells, and whistles to get people to come there. He will draw people unto Himself.

This is first and foremost a House of Prayer. We bring our burdens here to Christ and to one another. It is a sanctuary, a refuge, a safe place to be yourself, to be honest, to be authentic, to be real about who you are. This is not a place to parade our accomplishments and boost our egos. Leave them at the door. The ground is level at Calvary. We all come to this table just as we are.

We’ll Work Till Jesus Comes

By Lyndon Marcotte, Contemplative Corner

Proper 28A/Ordinary 33A/Pentecost +22
Matthew 25:14-30

The Bible has been misused and taken out of context for a very long time. Jesus Himself often had to correct misunderstandings about Old Testament scriptures. Hopefully, it has been misused mostly out of ignorance and not from ill-intention. I certainly have made mistakes over the years in how I looked a particular passage and now view some things differently than I did when I first started preaching. However, some people intentionally and maliciously twist scripture to fit their own agendas.

This particular passage is one of the more commonly abused passages in the Gospels. It has become quite popular with preachers of the “prosperity Gospel.” You know, the tv preachers who say God wants all Christians to be millionaires, to inherent their “divine destiny,” “name-it-and-claim-it,” etc. Of course the path to achieving that success begins with a donation to their tv ministry and signing up for their audio message of the month club.

They like to use a text like this to prove that God wants us to be wealthy. The implication is that if you’re not, something is wrong with your faith. They want you to read this passage literally and take away from it that God wants us all to do well with our 401k’s and stock options. If that were the case, we don’t need pastors. We need financial planners and hedge fund managers. We don’t need sermons. We need seminars on how to manage your money.

Too many people see God as a divine slot machine. “If I put X in, pull the religious lever correctly, I will get Y out.”  Many people see Christianity as one big transaction. “If I’m a good person, God will love me and take me to heaven when I die.”

Whenever Moses went up the mountain and stayed gone too long, the people took to their own devices and made it up as they went along. After Jesus ascended and left the Church behind, some people decided to follow the Israelites example. While we may not be worshipping golden calves these days, we have taken to worshipping personalities, power, and money, even in the church, especially in the church.

This is another parable in a series of those that Jesus told that talks about the kingdom of heaven. “The kingdom of heaven is like…” Jesus is trying to prepare the Church for his physical absence from them. The Gospels were written decades after Jesus left by a faith community that had begun to question whether would Jesus return, when He would return, and how. Most of them were written even after A.D. 70 when the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. These were bleak times for this community, and they turned to the words of Jesus for comfort and hope.

When they heard the parable again after Jesus had left, they heard it differently. “Like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them… After a long time the master of those servants returned…” They knew who the Master was when they heard this parable retold in Jesus’ absence.

In the parable of the 10 virgins waiting for the bridegroom, we were told to be vigilant in watching and waiting for His return, even though He tarry. Keep on watching, keep on waiting.  Be on watch for the kingdom to appear in every moment.  In this parable we are told what we are to be about while we are waiting, what kind of business we should be engaged in. We are not to dig a hole and hide our treasure. We are not to find a safe little place to hide, hold hands, and sing kum-ba-ya till Jesus comes. We are supposed to be about our Father’s business, just like Jesus.

The real currency of life is not money. The real currency of our lives is time. We must be careful how we spend it. We must wisely spend our lives in our Father’s business, even though Christ tarry in His coming. We should not become lazy. We should not be fearful. We should live to please ourselves, but we should love God and love one another. Use everything we have: our time, our bodies, the strength of our hands, the skill of our minds… use them all for God’s glory.

Annie Dillard said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our life.” It’s what we do in the little insignificant moments that matters, not just on those really big important moments where everyone is watching. What are you doing with the life God gave you? Are you just going to wring your hands in despair? Are you going to spend it on your own pleasures, going from one to another trying to find happiness? Are you going to use your life to glorify the God who gave it to you and to love the people God has placed in your life? That’s the real question.

Jesus is coming. Jesus is always coming and is always here. He comes to us each and everyday in big and small ways. Jesus comes in our acts of kindness and words of love. As we spend our lives on behalf of others, Christ comes to us and to those we love in those moments, and we get a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven.