Hi folks! I hope everyone is having a good start to their week. We’re fighting a stomach bug here, but otherwise enjoying the upswing in weather. Here is this week’s sermon. I hope it is a blessing to you.

SCRIPTURE – Philippians 3:4b-14
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

SERMON 

Pressing On
Phil. 3:4b-14
March 25, 2007

We have a semi-finished basement at our house that has become a bit of an old toy magnet. It’s a great place for the girls to play because there’s plenty of room for them to spread out…and because it’s the basement, which means it’s separated from the civilized parts of the house. But because it’s not all the way finished, they don’t play down there very much, so we keep all of their favorite toys upstairs. As those toys outlive their usefulness, they get transferred to the toy dungeon. In our house, if you’re a toy and you get moved to the basement, you’re probably not going to get a lot more use. It’s like Toy Death Row, because the next step after the basement is the trash.

About once or twice a year, Leigh and I will go down there with a couple trash bags and weed out all the toys that used to be so important, but have long since been forgotten. We do this after the girls are asleep, of course, or else they’d never let us toss anything out. A lot of times, as we’re cleaning, we’ll come across a doll or a stuffed animal that used to go everywhere with us and get daily use. But as the girls get older, they move on to other things. It’s funny how things that used to be some important to us lose their value as we grow and mature.

That’s what Paul is trying to help the Philippians understand in our passage today. To understand what Paul is saying, it is most helpful to understand the context. Paul is writing this letter from Rome, where he has been put into prison for preaching the Gospel. As far as he knows, this might be the last letter he ever writes to the Philippians, so he wants to make sure he says everything he wants to say.

As was often the case back then, the Philippian church was under attack from opponents to the Gospel. Interestingly enough, the opponents this time were Jews. You see, the Philippian Christians were mostly Gentiles who had come to faith in Jesus Christ without going through the path of Judaism. This irked some of the Jews, who believed that in order to be a Christian, a person had to first become a Jew, which meant going through all the purification and covenant rituals. They were mad that these Gentiles were being given the same status and privileges as them without going through the same process. It’s like you’ve been driving around the parking lot four or five times waiting for a space to come open, and just as you see one open up, a car zips into the parking lot and steals your space. That probably stirs up some unchristian thoughts. No fair, right?

The Gentiles were probably getting nervous because of the pressure they were under from the Jews, so Paul reassures them that there are no prerequisites to faith in Jesus. When the Gentiles tried to plead Paul’s case, the Jews said, “Sure, he’s a Christian! What does he know about being a Jew?” So Paul lays out his resume.

From a religious standpoint, it’s a very impressive one. He was circumcised on his eighth day, which means his parents followed the customary Jewish laws. The tribe of Benjamin was one of the more elite groups in Israel; in fact, Israel’s first king, King Saul, came from the line of Benjamin. When Paul says he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, he probably meant that he was not only of Jewish descent, but studied the Hebrew Scriptures and spoke the Hebrew language, which few people did at his time. Paul identifies himself as a Pharisee, one of the most respected religious groups whose job it was to maintain the purity of God’s law down to the letter. Paul said he was so full of zeal – a good trait to have in regard to religion – that he persecuted anyone who didn’t see things his way. And finally he says, when it came to legalistic righteousness, he was faultless. Paul was about as perfect a law-abiding, God-worshipping Jew as you could find.

Now, Paul parading out his portfolio may smack of smug self-confidence and blatant braggadocio, but he has a motive. He is basically telling the Philippians – and their opponents – that if anyone knows Judaism, it is him. This is not some tenderfoot Christian blowing off the importance of the Jewish tradition; this is a deeply devout Jew who has given his life to studying the Torah and following God’s law.

Which makes Paul’s next statement so shocking: “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” Now, I’m no financial guru, but I would guess it’s a bad thing. Not many companies have thrived by turning profits into losses. Profit good; loss bad. But not for Paul, who says, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus.”

Here’s the difference between the old Paul and the new one. The old Paul did everything he could to try and earn righteousness, which simply means God’s favor. He was devout, he was zealous, he was faithful, he followed the law to the letter. And yet what he found was that nothing he did could earn him that. He was always falling short. That is, until he met Jesus Christ, who offered him God’s favor with no strings attached. Paul didn’t have to do anything to earn it; it was a gift given to him through faith in Jesus.

In many ways that goes against our culture, which tells us any benefits we have must be earned. When I was in seminary I did a unit of CPE, which is like an internship as a hospital chaplain. To complete my CPE unit, I had to log 200 hours of hospital visitations. And only when I logged my 200th hour was I able to get my certificate.

Paul says God doesn’t require a certain amount of hours before we are considered righteousness. You don’t have to log hours in worship or on a committee or teaching Sunday School before you earn God’s favor. Before he was a Christian, Paul thought his salvation was up to him; now, through his faith in Christ, he realized it was up to God.

Therefore, everything that came before his faith in Christ Paul calls “rubbish.” Like the toys in our basement, it’s no longer useful to him. Before, Paul’s goal was to earn his way into God’s favor. But now Paul has a different goal, and it’s completely reshaped the way he lives.

Paul’s goal was simple. He says, “I want to know all about Christ so that, somehow, I might attain resurrection.” I like the “somehow” in there. Paul doesn’t know the particulars of attaining resurrection, but he does know that it comes through knowing Christ, and he’s now dedicated his life to that goal.

What is your goal? I’m not talking about a financial goal or a family goal. I’m talking about a faith goal. What are you striving for spiritually? What are you trying to become? Do you come to church because it’s the thing to do? Or do you have a goal? When you look at your faith, what would you like to be different about you a year from now? Ten years from now? As a Christian, what’s your goal?

Paul thought if you’re going to be a Christian you should be like Jesus. So what do you do with all those things in your life that aren’t Christ-like, that don’t honor Jesus? You look at your pride and your agenda and your priorities and your calendar, and you see what needs to stay and what needs to go in order to become more like Christ.

If we’re serious about being Christians, then our goals in life should reflect that. If we are believers in Christ, then we follow someone who was equal to God, but gave that up so that He could come down and be with us, to show us God’s love and forgiveness. If Christ was willing to let go of all He was to come down here, are there things we need to let go of to become more like him? Are there goals we are pursuing that are taking us away from Christ instead of moving us toward him?

The irony of Paul’s goal is that it wasn’t actually reachable. He could never be just like Christ. But that didn’t stop him from trying: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal.” Paul realizes he’s not there yet, but is willing to keep moving forward, to keep pressing on.

We’re not there yet either, are we? All of us, you and me, have a ways to go before we reach our goal. But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying, because I believe we are made perfect in the trying itself. The mark of maturity is to know we are not yet perfect, but to also know that God is still at work in us, renewing us perfecting us more and more each and every day.

We have to be careful at our house when I do the shopping. When Leigh says to get bananas, I get bananas. She doesn’t specify what color the bananas should be. So sometimes I come home with green bananas. They’re still bananas, right? Does she throw them out because we can’t eat them? Of course not. The bananas aren’t ready because God’s not done making them, so we wait until they are ripe and ready. God is continuing His work in us, ripening us and maturing us so that we can do His work in this world. We may not be where we want to be yet in our faith, we may still be a bit green in some places, but that’s all the more reason to keep pressing on.

God is far less concerned about who you were than who you’re going to be. Paul used to be a good man. Was there anything wrong with his commitment to his faith? In many ways it was commendable. But it wasn’t who God wanted him to be. We very well may be doing good things, but they may not be God things. Listen for God’s leading. Read His word. Speak to Him through prayer. Press on toward your goal.

Paul knew God wasn’t finished with him yet; God is not finished with us, either. And as we are able to let go of the goals that keep us from a deeper relationship with Christ, we will continue to move closer and closer to our ultimate goal: to know Christ and the power of His resurrection. As Martin Luther said, “The nature of a Christian does not lie in what he or she has become, but in what that person is becoming.” What are you becoming?

QUESTIONS

1-I still have some cassette tapes sitting around my house. What’s one thing you still have that has outlived its usefulness? (No fair answering “My husband!”)

2-What’s one area of your faith where you feel you have “ripened”? What’s an area where you’re still green?

3-What would like to be different about your faith a year from now?

Have a great week!

Hello, everyone! What a beautiful day it is here in the Chicagoland area. That of course means it will snow tomorrow. Spring IS close, right? Here is this week’s sermon. The theme is appropriate considering the coming season,when new life bursts forth. I pray you have a blessed week!

SCRIPTURE – 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

All Things New
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
March 18, 2007

I’ll admit that I’m not a person who likes to give up control easily. I hope not too many of you have already learned that about me. This is especially true in my personal life. But I came to the realization not too long ago that I needed to let go of something I was holding too tightly, and that was my wardrobe.

I’ve always thought of myself as someone who had decent taste in clothes. I could put together matching outfits, I never wore a striped shirt with plaid pants, my socks were almost always the same color. But what opened my eyes was Tim coming here to CCC. Tim is a very snazzy dresser. He’s hip; he’s cool. And I realized that I was about 10 years behind the fashion curve.

So I gave my wife Leigh complete control over my wardrobe. I let her sort through all my clothes and toss out the ones that she thought were outdated, which was pretty much everything. Out went the MC Hammer parachute pants. Out went the Members Only jacket. If you bought a piece of men’s clothing at last year’s garage sale, there’s a 57% chance it used to be mine.

Then, slowly, she began to rebuild my wardrobe. Pants from Old Navy, shirts from Eddie Bauer. Nothing fancy or expensive, but tasteful and from this century. I would come home from work and there would be a new shirt waiting for me. I had a new wardrobe and renewed confidence to go out in public without getting laughed at. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit my wife dresses me – not literally! – but I felt like a new person.

I believe that feeling is a Godly feeling. I say that because the Bible repeatedly makes the point that our God is a God of new things. This is not a status-quo, keep-things-as-they-are-God. In Isaiah, God says, “Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See! I am doing a new thing.” Through Jesus God offered a new covenant and a new commandment. He has given us a new teaching and promised us a new heaven and a new earth. This is not a God who encourages us to stay the same.

That’s the point Paul is trying to make the Corinthians in our reading today. Paul founded this church in Corinth, and ever since had a contentious relationship with them. Corinth was a cosmopolitan port city, which means all kinds of temptations existed to distract the Corinthian Christian. They were constantly being pulled away from their growing faith and back into old destructive behaviors. So Paul would write letters to them encouraging them to keep the faith.

In this particular passage today, Paul is dealing with something that hits a little closer to home for him. The Corinthians had let themselves be persuaded by false teachers to question Paul’s credentials and his authenticity as an apostle of God. They were judging Paul by worldly standards instead of by the standards set by God. So Paul tells them, “From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.”

That one phrase has huge implications for the Corinthians, because the worldly view around them was antithetical to their Christian view. A person’s value, a person’s wealth, a person’s influence would have all been determined in worldly ways. When people looked at Jesus from a worldly point of view, they saw who he was in the flesh, but missed who he really was, missed it so badly that they killed him. To know Christ in the flesh is to know him as a miracle worker and prophet descended from David; but to know him as a savior is completely different. It’s fundamentally incompatible to look at someone from a worldly view and expect to see them as God sees them.

As Paul tells the Corinthians, the only way we can see this is if we stop looking through old eyes. Paul says, “The old has gone, the new has come!” That translation doesn’t quite do the Hebrew words justice, because it implies a replacing. But what the Hebrew actually says is that, “the old things have passed away and been transformed into the new.” It’s not replacement; it’s transformation.

When I was in college my lemon of a car finally gave out on me, so my dad bought me a beat-up Ford Mustang. It wasn’t pretty, but it started, which was pretty much all I needed. The seats of the car were in particularly bad shape. The leather had deep slashes in it, and so much stuffing was coming out that no amount of duct tape could keep it all in. So my dad told me to take it to a local car upholstery shop and he’d pay to have the seats redone. I was expecting a patchwork job, but what I got when I pick the car up was a complete transformation. The shop had taken the old seats and restored them to their original, without a scratch or a blemish. That’s how God works with us. God takes what we have, what we are, and through our faith in Christ, transforms us, restoring us to our original intention.

Therefore, the evidence of our faith is transformation. If we’re the same person after church that we were before church, then we’re missing something. That’s not a comment on how good or bad the sermon is; I believe in a God that can speak even through bad sermons. Encountering the word of God should transform us. Something should be different after we’ve heard God speak. Paul says God has reconciled himself to us, meaning he has taken steps to bring us back into relationship with him through what he has done in Christ. God sought us out. That move by God should not leave us unchanged. An understanding of the gift and meaning of Christ’s death – not from a worldly view but from a spiritual view – should have implications for how we live our lives each and every day.

That’s what Paul is telling the Corinthians when he says that Christ has committed to us the message of reconciliation. God sent us Christ, who then sent us the Holy Spirit, who created the church. We are direct spiritual descendants of God called to carry on his reconciling work, helping to bring people to God.

Paul uses an interesting word to describe us. He calls us ambassadors. Dictionary.com defines an ambassador as “an authorized representative or messenger.” In our world today, ambassadors are commissioned by the head of their home country and serve on behalf of their government in foreign nations. They live and move among these foreigners, representing their country to those who do not know it.

What a perfect image of our work here on earth! We also have been commissioned by the head of our home country. If we believe that our citizenship is in Heaven, then we also are living in a foreign nation, surrounded by people who don’t know much about our home. And we are called to represent – or re-present – the values and love of our home to these people. We are strangers here, called to share with those around us the reconciling love of God.

But as Paul tells the Corinthians, how can we do this work if we haven’t accepted the fact that we have been changed? If we claim to have been made new, but aren’t living like we’ve been made new, then what message are we sending? When we call ourselves a Christian – and don’t think that’s not a bold statement to make – we are making certain claims about who we are and what we believe. But if we say the Lord’s name on Sunday but act and speak on Monday like we’ve never met him, how are we doing as an ambassador? The honor of Christ is in our hands. By our words and actions we can make people think more – or less – of Christ and the church.

To be ambassadors, to stop regarding people from a worldly point of view, to accept the reconciling love of Christ, we must accept that God has made us new. This is not a cosmetic change; this is not just putting on new clothes or getting a new hairdo. This is a fundamental change that only God can make in us. We are not simply offered a new perspective that they may or may not adopt as and when we see fit. Rather, something so fundamental has changed in such a profound fashion that the old ways of looking, perceiving, understanding and evaluating have to be let go and replaced with this new way of seeing and understanding.

A determining factor of this change is how we see others, and that’s what Paul is trying to help the Corinthians see. We can’t put obstacles in front of a person’s value. They don’t have to conform themselves to our way of seeing or acting or believing to be valuable. Each person’s value has been established by Christ’s death, not by their response to that death. People, whoever they are, whether or not they have responded to Christ, are loved by God. Paul was reminding the Corinthians that their acceptance of Christ should transform how they think of him and those around them. Our view of everyone is different once we’ve been transformed.

Did you notice that spring is in the air? As we get closer to Easter, we are moving into a season of newness. The earth is awakening from its sleep, throwing off its blanket of snow. Trees are starting to bloom and flowers are beginning to blossom. Signs of new life are all around us. As we move through Lent, may the recognition of what Christ has done for us also bring forth newness within us. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has gone; the new has come!

QUESTIONS
1 – I said that putting on a new shirt can make me feel like new. What do you do that makes you feel like a new person?

2 – What is new about you because of your faith in God?

3 – What do you pray for yourself as we move into the season of Spring?

4 – Keep this answer to yourself: To whom could you be an ambassador this week?

Greetings, everyone! I hope your week is off to a good start. Here is this week’s sermon, as we listen to Jesus address the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” I pray this sermon is a blessing to you, and that you bear fruit for God this week.

SCRIPTURE – Luke 13:1-9

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ” ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’

SERMON

The Fruits of Repentance
Luke 13:1-9
March 11, 2007

In the early 1970s, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a very popular and influential book that is still looked at today as one of the most important books written in recent time. It was required reading in seminary for me. That book is called, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” Kushner says on the first page of his book that this is the only question that really matters. It’s certainly a question I hear a lot, and one that I believe keeps a lot of people from greater faith, or from faith at all.

But notice that Kushner’s book isn’t called, “Why Bad Things Happen to God People.” Even though Kushner went through the pain of losing a son to a childhood illness, he doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t know why, but he does know that, in the course of our lives, it will happen: good people will endure bad things.

This is not a new question. In fact, people were struggling to understand it back in Jesus’ time. What we have in the first part of today’s passage is a group of people trying to make sense of out of a senseless tragedy. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the area, had slaughtered a group of people from Galilee while they were offering sacrifices in the temple. It’s a terrible atrocity, as if occupying forces had invaded a church and killed the worshippers on Christmas Day.

Jesus’ audience wants to know why. Why did these people die? The popular belief of that day, and the closest they could come to an answer, was that bad things happening were God’s punishment for sinful behavior. This belief stretches all the way back to the book of Job, which is thought to be the oldest book in the Old Testament. Job was a man of faith who slowly lost everything that was important to him. While never losing faith, he struggled to understand why all these bad things are happening to him. He asked the question: Why me? And Job’s friend, Eliphaz, who I’m sure was just trying to be helpful, said, “Who that was innocent has ever perished?” In other words, “Well Job, if something bad is happening, you probably did something to deserve it.” With friends like Eliphaz, who needs enemies?

But that explanation was the best he could come up with, and we haven’t done much better since then. There are still people today who assume that tragedy is God’s way of getting our attention and punishing us for wrongdoing. I’ll never forget Jerry Falwell’s comments after Sept. 11. He said that America was getting what it deserved because it had pushed God to the fringes of society. Now, I don’t disagree with him on our treatment of God, but do we really believe in a God who would punish us with terrorist attacks?

Falwell, and others like him, could use a lesson from Jesus. When confronted with the deaths of these innocent folks in the temple, Jesus says, “Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than others because of what happened to them?” I tell you, no!” But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He moves on to another incident, in which a tower in Siloam fell on a group of 18 people. There’s no one to blame for this incident, except for maybe the tower’s architect. And yet, when a natural disaster occurs, some people quickly look to God as the cause and culprit. Even insurance companies label such things “acts of God,” as if God reaches down and stirs up the wind so that a hurricane can exact divine justice.

Jesus actually uses some humor in helping the crowd understand how far-fetched their understanding of God is. When discussing the fallen tower, Jesus says, “Those people who died there – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?” Basically what he asking is, “Do you think the tower happened to fall on the 18 worst sinners in Jerusalem?” What a coincidence, right? The 18 worst sinners in all of Jerusalem all happened to be taking their smoke break near the tower at the same time! God sure does have good aim!

The interesting thing to note here is that Jesus doesn’t answer the question of why bad things happen to good people. If anyone could give us some insight into this, it would be him, and yet he leaves that question to make a more important point. Stop worrying about the fate of others and focus on your own need for repentance. That’s an interesting word, “repent.” The Hebrew word for “repentance” means “to turn back”; the Greek word means “to change one’s attitude or mind-set”. Repenting is not merely regretting things we’ve done wrong or apologizing for them. It’s agreeing that a change in direction is needed, and then working to make that change.

The crowd to whom Jesus was speaking needed a change in direction. You see, the Jewish people were growing increasingly agitated at the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. And the two events mentioned here could both have direct ties to a growing rebellion against Rome.

But Jesus came preaching peace, not rebellion. He came to offer a different kind of freedom than freedom from Rome. And the point he makes to the crowd is this: if you working to bring about a kingdom other than the kingdom of God, you will perish. If the Jewish nation didn’t change direction, if they kept on seeking an earthly kingdom and rejected the kingdom of God, they would meet a similar end. Those who pick up the sword will die by the sword.        

Those consequences extend beyond this earthly life. The suffering and tragedy of this world are not a measure of a person’s righteousness. Good people die young, and scoundrels live to old age. There’s no explanation that will satisfy questions as to why that happens. It’s life. Everyone has to die; it’s part of being human. How and when we die has nothing to do with how spiritual or unspiritual we are. Now, at times we like to think that tragedies suffered by sinful people are a direct cause of their sins, because that then makes us feel better about ourselves. “She deserved that; look at the life she led.” But Jesus’ point is particularly cutting here: we all are going to die, and it is up to us to decide whether we accept the gift of eternal life Christ offers us, or not. We all have a debt of sin before God, and we all need to repent and ask forgiveness. Either we let Jesus pay that debt for us by his work on the cross, or we will have to pay it ourselves.

That’s what Jesus addresses in the second part of the passage with the parable about the unfruitful fig tree. An agricultural lesson is in order here to help us get the full impact of this story’s meaning. The maturation time span of a fig tree was about three years. After being planted and growing for three years, a fig tree should start producing fruit. Rich, farmable land was precious is this part of the world, so every plant and tree was expected to do its part. There was no reason to let an unfruitful tree use up good soil.

There’s a name for trees like that. When I played basketball in high school, I wasn’t particularly good, but I was particularly tall. That’s a big advantage in basketball. So the coach would put me in the game and tell me to stand near the basket so that the opposing players couldn’t get to it. Coach called me a space-eater. My job was to take up a lot of space.

The unfruitful tree is a space-eater. Notice that the tree hasn’t done anything wrong. Its sin isn’t that it did something it shouldn’t. It’s that it didn’t do anything at all. It was just taking up space in the orchard. It was a waste of good soil.

That way of existing goes against the evolutionary process of our existence. Isn’t it true that as our world develops, useful things are kept and useless things are discarded? How many of you remember floppy disks? Those 3 ½” disks that you used for your computer? They’ve become the vinyl records of this generation. I have one on my computer desk that now I use as a coaster. As technology advanced, they no longer became useful. If you still have them lying around, they’re a waste of your desk space.

What Jesus is warning against is living the life of an unfruitful fig tree. There are some people in this world who put in more than they take out, but there are others who take and take and take, but rarely give. Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, “When I die, I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.” Some people plant flowers, others just take up the soil.

By combining these two stories together, Jesus is saying this: Life is fragile. People are still murdered and towers still fall. It’s the result of living in an imperfect world, where we are subject to the cruel whims of diseases and drunk drivers and bad decisions. We have little control over when and how it will end. It could be tomorrow, or it could be decades from now. What we do have in our control is how we use whatever time we have left. If we don’t believe in Christ, we can repent and change the direction of our life. If we do believe in Christ, and accept him as our Lord and Savior, we can use our time to pluck weeds and plant flowers, to bear fruit as we labor for the kingdom of God. We are fertilized by the richness of God’s word and the abounding grace of God’s spirit. We’ve been given all we need to continuing growing and bearing fruit. The sin of the fig tree wasn’t that it was doing something it shouldn’t. The sin of the fig tree was that it was doing nothing at all.

QUESTIONS

1-Have you ever been the victim of “an act of God”?

2-Why do you think people give God the responsibility for anything that goes badly in their lives?

3-Think about your week ahead: what’s one new way you can be fruitful for God as your live your life?

Greetings, friends! Here is this week’s sermon, based on Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem’s undisciplined ways. I pray that it is a blessing to you, and I look forward to your responses.  

SCRIPTURE – Luke 13:31-35
At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!

“O 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, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

SERMON
Keep On Going
Luke 13:31-35
March 4, 2007

We all probably remember our first love, but do you remember your first rejection? Pamela Tillman. It still hurts. We were in kindergarten together. I liked her because she shared her glue with me. Our love was more of an unspoken one, but I was pretty convinced that she had the hots for me, mainly because I had the latest Smurfs lunchbox. Girls really dug that kind of stuff.

The rejection came on, of all the days, Valentine’s Day. My own version of the Valentine’s Day Massacre. For Pamela, I had picked out a Scooby Doo valentine because it had the most hearts on it. Surely she’d get the message, right? When we exchanged Valentines at school, the one she gave me was some generic 101 Dalmatians valentine with some vague expression of admiration like “You’re the top dog!” But then I noticed the one she gave to Lance, who sat next to me. It said “hugs and kisses” on it! Why didn’t I get the one that said “hugs and kisses”? It sounds silly now, but at the time I was absolutely heartbroken.

You remember how it feels to have your heart broken? It’s not a place in our memory we like to dwell, is it? Nothing hurts so much as to go to someone and offer love – in my case, in the form of a Scooby Doo valentine – and have that offer rejected. It physically hurts. It makes you sick to your stomach. Do you remember that feeling of being rejected? Of being told, “You’re not good enough?” Of being told, “We don’t want you?” Do you remember that feeling?

Now you have an idea of what Jesus is feeling in our passage today. It’s not often in the gospels that we get a glimpse inside Jesus’ mind, to hear his thoughts and feel his emotions. This is Jesus at his most human, and we can almost hear the anguish in his cry of, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” Sounds a bit like my cry walking home from school: “O Pamela, Pamela.” It’s the cry of one who’s given his whole heart, only to have it broken.

Not that Jesus should be surprised. Many of his attempts to reach out were spurned in one way or another, including by the religious leaders of the day. Which makes the Pharisees’ warning in this passage so peculiar. So many times in the gospels that have been at odds with Jesus, trying to trap him or provoke him into conflict. They will play an instrumental role in his arrest. And yet, here they are, warning Jesus about the danger he faces and offering some unsolicited advice.

Were the Pharisees genuinely concerned about Jesus’ well-being, or did they just want him off their street corner? Their exhortation to “leave this place and go somewhere” carries with it the implied statement, “we don’t you here.” To be looking out for his welfare would be totally out of character. But there is a kernel of truth to their warning. Herod DID want to kill Jesus, and will eventually play a role in making that happen during Holy Week. Herod was already responsible for the beheading of John the Baptist, and now was turning his attention to the latest rabble-rouser, this Jesus character.

Although Herod’s title was “king,” he was hardly a respected leader. Everyone knew Herod’s only claim to royalty was because the Romans promoted him to rule over a remote outpost in order to get in good with his father, who was basically a very powerful thug. Herod’s power is not real power, even though he claims it as such.

Of course, Jesus sees right through it, calling him a “fox,” which means he’s cunning, sly, and destructive. Jesus isn’t about to back off his divine call just because it’s dangerous. Poet Robert Frost once wrote, “The best way out is always through.” Perseverance was a hallmark of Jesus’ ministry. In the face of evil and challenges and plain old human stubbornness, he pressed on today, tomorrow, and the next day.

After reasserting his destiny and mission, we get this aside from Jesus about Jerusalem, which was the central location of the Temple and God’s people. He uses this interesting metaphor to articulate his heartfelt desire: “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”

We may not immediately picture Jesus as a mother hen, but that metaphor has ample precedence in scripture. God’s protection is often associated with the protection of a mother bird. Psalm 17 says, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings from the wicked who assail me, from my mortal enemies who surround me.” And Psalm 61 says, “Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe. I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.”

I remember reading a story about a fire at a farmhouse. Once the fire was out, the firemen began the process of cleaning up around the grounds. As they were doing that, they heard a small peeping noise by the barn. When the investigated, they found a dead hen, scorched and blackened – with three live chicks hidden under her wings. God’s protection is like that of a mother hen sheltering her children from danger.

In a sense, what Jesus has done is paint a different picture of leadership than the one we were just given a few verses before. It’s basically the difference between foxes and hens. Foxes rule their turf through violence, aggression, and bloodshed, while hens offer no defense other than sacrificing themselves on behalf of their chicks. Jesus had disciples; Herod had soldiers. Jesus serves; Herod rules. Jesus prays for his enemies; Herod kills his. In a contest between the two, who would you bet on?

This image of God as a mother hen is fine in terms of comfort, but doesn’t quite work when it comes to protection. I concur with preacher Barbara Brown Taylor when she says she’d rather have Clint Eastwood protecting her. In the movie “Pale Rider,” Eastwood plays a frontier preacher with a secretive past. In one scene, as he prepares to face the foxes that have overrun his town, his past is revealed when he opens up a safety deposit box, takes off his clerical collar, and grabs a pair of six-shooters and a belt full of bullets.

That’s the kind of protection the Israelites wanted from Jesus. They didn’t want a suffering messiah; they wanted a messiah who would kick tail and take names, a vanquishing messiah who would come into Jerusalem with his six-shooters blazing, ridding their beloved city of all the Roman foxes who had overrun it.

That may explain why they rejected Jesus. They wanted the aggressiveness of a fox, while he was offering the commitment of a mother hen. They didn’t understand the power of the sacrifice Christ was going to make for them. The city had a reputation for not understanding God’s message. As Jesus notes, prophet after prophet had been run out of the city. And now, their house is left desolate. That’s what happens when you repeatedly as God to go away; you get what you wish for.

But Jesus will come again, to Jerusalem and to us, on Palm Sunday, when it will be proclaimed, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” We will once again have a chance to welcome Christ and the protection he offers from all that this world throws at us.

This protection doesn’t mean we still won’t have to face the foxes. Remember, the only way out is through. But what it means is that we won’t stand alone as life bombards us with disease and death and deception and disappointment. When Herod and his bullies came after Jesus, he didn’t put down his pitcher and bowl and pick up a rifle. He just put himself between them and his children. We have this big, fluffed up, brooding hen, offering warmth and shelter and companionship, planting herself between the foxes of this world and us fragile chicks, offering herself up as a sacrifice in our place.

The amazing thing about this protection is that there is room for all of us. Our mother hen doesn’t discriminate and exclude. Look around here! Right now, under the protection of God’s wings, I see some orphans, some runts, even a couple ducks. There is room enough for all of us in here, and there is no limit to the love and protection Christ offers us: “I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day.”

We can face the foxes alone. We can whip out our six-shooters and try to outgun them. We can rely on our own strength and cunning and bravery. But in the end, it won’t be enough, will it? Through the cross, Christ offers us forgiveness and love and protection. Of course, we don’t have to take it. But I wonder what will become of the young if they don’t accept the shelter of their mother’s wings? As we keep going today, and tomorrow, and the next day, we keep in front of us the divine goal of a life lived in the presence and praise of Jesus Christ. With Christ as our guide and guardian, we will make it out by making it through.

QUESTIONS

1- Do you remember your first rejection?

2- What is meaningful to you about the image of God as a mother hen?

3- Have you ever felt protected by God?

 Have a great week!