What Are We Waiting For? Part 1

I've been sitting on this sermon for a while, reworking it a couple of times. Here is the first part of it.

What Are We Waiting For?
Part 1

Romans 8:12-25

Just before we perform baptisms here at Mt. Level, Pastor Turner calls for and receives a public confession of faith from those who have come to be joined to Christ. In the joy of that moment of confession, he usually turns to the rest of the congregation and asks us whether we who are present remember our baptisms. That is not such a hard memory for Baptists to dredge up, and the question encourages us to look back upon our lives so far following Jesus.

Some of those present have a rush of joy as they start to remember how their lives have changed over the years from that day they entered the waters of baptism. A few have in mind the harmful ways of living that God’s grace has helped them leave behind. Others have in mind the ways they have learned to trust God and walk in faith. Someone may remember the joy of growing to know the ways of God and finding a direction or purpose for living. Someone else may relive the joy that comes from having become God’s instrument and living in a way that serves and builds up other people.

Looking back on what has happened to us, we practice what Jim McClendon called one of the remembering signs of the church. We remember what has died with Christ, what has been buried with Christ, how our lives have been raised to walk in the ways of Christ, how we share in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Remembering helps us to join with the newly baptized in this community act of the church, this shared event of baptism that unites us to Christ and to one another.

A while back there was a very good feature film called Tender Mercies, starring Robert Duvall. It is the story of a middle-aged country singer whose life hit bottom through egotism, selfishness, anger, and alcoholism. The troubled character’s life had declined and dissipated to the point that he was drifting from place to place, ruining whatever remaining friendships he had. In the story, he ends up at an isolated Texas roadside motel and gas station, and that’s where his redemption begins. Struggling to get sober, he finds his way into a Baptist church, receives the good news of God’s love, and starts to learn the joy of giving of himself for others. Eventually, he is baptized, along with another character in the story, a young boy. In their conversation after the baptismal service, the question is asked, “Do you feel any different?” The answer, which probably comes as no surprise to folks like us, is, “Not yet.” Feel any different? Not yet.

So on the one hand, at Mt. Level we can look back on the years since our baptisms with joy in seeing how God’s work in our lives has unfolded. Yet on the other hand, the movie’s question reminds us how at the beginning of the process, we could not immediately see what God was up to in our lives. Today’s text reminds us, right at the end of the passage, that we were saved in hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. When we can see something already, we don’t have to hope for it. We already have it. But that is not how so many things work. Some things we have now, and others require waiting with hope.

When we entered the waters of baptism, we reached a great milestone in our pilgrimage toward the Reign of God. The hopeful act of baptism marked our commitment to place our trust in the God who raised Jesus from the dead. It depends on what situation you were in at that time just what the hope was. Maybe you did not see your way out of the traps of sin that were unraveling your life. You had determined to unite yourself to Christ to gain the strength to lay aside the weights and besetting sins in your life. Since you had been unable to turn your life around on your own, accepting baptism demonstrated your hope for a different life that was as yet unseen.

Perhaps you were a child who was recognizing longings you could not completely understand. It was a longing for something more of life that had been kindled by hearing the stories of Israel, Jesus, and the church and singing the songs of faith. You had come to recognize the love of God revealed in Jesus. You knew that Jesus loved you, and you knew that the church people loved you. So you were ready to say that you would walk hand-in-hand with the ones who had pointed you toward this love and this way of living. You were living in hope of what you could become in the hands of God, but you did not see it yet. It was part of the mystery of the life that God was already unfolding in you.

Whatever our situation at the time of our baptism, it is a time in which we do not yet see the full results of what we hope God’s grace will do in us. We are saved in hope, and we hope for what we do not see. God is not finished blessing when we climb out of the waters of baptism. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of humanity all that Christ has for us. As Jeremiah told Israel, God has plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give us a future and a hope. As Paul wrote in chapter 5 of this same letter to the Romans, hope does not disappoint. As he wrote to the Philippian church, God who began a good work in you will bring it to its completion.

A couple of weeks ago our family was at the gathering of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. One evening in particular took us out of the ordinary events of the group. After an evening worship service, we walked down to a public area by the St. Lawrence River, in the town of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, a suburb of Montreal, Quebec. That night, a sixteen-year-old girl named Maggie was baptized.

It was a moment of great joy for her and for those of us who had watched her growing up in the faith. It was an opportunity for us to dwell in the hope of what God would continue to do in her life, in the lives of other young people present, in the lives of the old folks present, and in the work for justice and peace that many of them are doing in the name of Jesus. After she came up out of the water, one of the men started singing one of the good old songs, “Down by the Riverside,” a baptismal song. We come to the waters of baptism and lay down all the things from our lives, good and bad, so that we may offer ourselves to be remade and renewed by God. On that evening we joined in raising our voices to promise that we would lay down our burdens, we would lay down our swords and shields, and we would study war no more. A few of the town’s residents gathered to hear and see our witness, perhaps a bit puzzled by this crowd of people having church outside at the edge of the main business district.

Among the observers were two young men of about twenty years of age. When they saw us gathering, they made their way to get a view of the action. They heard us singing “Shall We Gather at the River,” and one asked in a loud voice, “Don’t these people know that God doesn’t exist?” They may have considered disrupting the observance, but instead became more than a little intrigued with what was happening. They conversed with several people over the next twenty minutes, sometimes intent on trying to get us to make some harsh or judgmental statement which would confirm their idea that Christians are hateful people who hold on to ideas that don’t make any sense. Apparently that part of their expectations went unfulfilled. Instead, they got a chance to see that there are Baptists who don’t fit their stereotypes of vengeful, unquestioning people with no compassion for anyone who does not agree with their ideas.

Both of the young men asked questions about how they could get their baptisms, performed on them as infants, reversed. They wanted to be unbaptized. They could see no reason to find hope in their baptism or in the church. One said he was an atheist and a nihilist, a person who does not believe there is a god nor that there is any purpose to the existence of the world or human beings. He said he thought we were more like biological machines.

As far as they could see it, there was no hope revealed through the church or baptism. Too much wrong in the world stood in the way. We did not hear detailed stories of their personal pains and hurts, but it is very likely that part of their disdain toward the church comes from direct experiences with Christians failing to live up to the name. But there is no point in my trying to psychoanalyze them. Whatever the cause, one can observe that they were not ready to hope in what is unseen. Too much of what they do see—the history of Christian failures to stand for peace and justice, the suffering of the hungry, Christians they have known who displayed hatred and bigotry, Christians unwilling to respect the questions these young men have about the possibility of faith—yes, too much that they see in the world leads them to despair rather than to hope.

I wish I could tell this as a story that would wrap everything up neatly in a storybook ending, with the young men seeing the light of faith and asking how to follow Jesus themselves. That’s not how it ended up. When most of the crowd had walked back to the campus, they called me aside to talk for another ten or fifteen minutes. I tried to respect their questions and resentments. They spoke to me with respect. I suggested some things they may not have thought about. They were willing to reconsider some of their assumptions about Christians. In the end, they were thankful for the conversation, and they acknowledged that all Christians don’t fit the stereotypes they had built up. They were surprised and seemed to be pleased to meet Christians who longed for the world to be better in some of the same ways that they longed for. The questions they asked and the challenges they made definitely revealed that they longed for a better world, whether or not they had much hope to see it.

Continued in next post . . .

The Land of the House of Omri--Part 2
Psalm 146
1 Kings 16

In times like these, we must listen to Jesus’ warning to “Watch out, beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the two most powerful factions of the political life of Palestine in Jesus’ day. They disliked each other and tried to gain advantage over one another. But they also made sure they worked together to see that no one else could challenge their joint hold on power. The third parties, like the Zealots or Herodians, were either has-beens or not-gonna-bes, in their eyes. So when they challenged Jesus as recorded in Matthew 16, they were willing to work together to try to keep him down. It says they came to him asking for a sign. But he knew they represented the house of Omri. So he challenged their power in his response.

He told them he did not need to give them a sign and had no intention of doing so. He told them there were all kinds of obvious signs about what God was doing in the world that they should be looking at and talking about. He reminded them in front of the crowd that they knew how to look at a red sky and depending on the details, predict whether it would be fair weather or stormy weather. They had plenty of skill at interpreting signs. But they had closed their minds and hearts to the signs of the times, the signs of what God was doing right in front of them. They were satisfied with the house of Omri. They were not looking for the paths to greater justice and mercy. As far as Jesus was concerned, if they couldn’t see what is as plain as the back of their own hand, then they must be blinded by their hardheartedness. He says that only an evil and adulterous sort of people ask for more signs than the ones they already have. And he told them to go back and think about the sign of Jonah, then see what happens. And he walked away.

His disciples were confused, and they asked questions that hurt his feelings. He explained his point to them, and they sort of figured out he was talking about what the Pharisees and Sadducees teach. But they seem to have remained somewhat confused. They had not figured out for themselves what God was doing in front of their faces. On the other hand, the Sadducees and Pharisees claimed to be the ones who know all about God, but they refused to see what God is doing.

We in the church can respond to God in both of these ways. On our good days, we can be like the disciples, muddling along, getting confused, thinking we knew what was happening and suddenly realizing we just don’t get it. Church people too often hear people talking church talk and assume that means that they are working for the Kingdom of God. Both of the last two presidents of the United States have been experts at this form of manipulation. Pres. Clinton portrayed himself as a devoted Baptist Christian. Pres. Bush portrays himself as a devoted Methodist Christian. People get caught up in this appearance and this image, and they say, “Isn’t it wonderful to have a devoted Christian in the White House?” The fog of words and images gets in the way of the signs of the times.

Where is the money getting spent? Whose taxes are getting cut and whose tax bills are growing? Where and why are the bombs being dropped? Who is training our young people to commit acts of torture? These are the signs of the times. But we keep getting hung up on whether we like the person in charge or whether the president or congress says nice things to us and makes us feel good. Watch out, and beware the yeast of the Democrats and the Republicans. Beware the yeast of the Baptists and the Methodists. Look at the neighborhoods of this city. What are the signs of the times? Do not put your trust in princes.

The church can also become like the Pharisees and Sadducees. We can get so self-righteous, so sure that we are living just like God wants us to live, that we miss the signs of the times. We can hide the sins of our lives and magnify the sins of people who are not in our churches. We can attack those people who do things we aren’t doing while we ignore our own sins of omission. We can strain at a gnat, and ignore the weightier matters of the law such as justice and mercy. We make our short list of sins that we find easy to avoid, and then we leave off the list the sins of a society, a war-making machine, an economic system of exploitation that is destroying the lives of young people, the poor, the elderly, the sick, the mentally ill, and the prisoners. Where are we Mt. Level folks in this story? Are we the Pharisees and Sadducees? Lord, help us here.

Well clearly the Bible warns us against trusting in worldly rulers, princes and kings, presidents and governors, generals and commissioners. So what kind of leader does the Bible teach us to be? What kind of leader does the world need? What kind of leader do churches need? Jesus continued the tradition of Samuel and Jeremiah when he talked to his disciples about leadership.

The conversation happened when the disciples started getting eager to see a kingdom come about with powerful people bossing the rest of the people. They started wondering who would get the highest ranks. One couple of brothers and their mother came up with a plan to lobby Jesus for favors. They asked if they could be his top assistants, on his right hand and his left. Jesus was appalled. He asked them a challenging question, which they did not understand. He asked if they could be the kind of leader he was. They had not figured out that the way he had been with them was the way he would continue to be with them; they still thought he had been playing the role of the meek and mild Jesus as a way of biding his time until he could rise up and become the head person in charge and throw his weight around. So they said, in all their humility, “Yes, Jesus, we can be like you and do what you do.” They were eager to be in charge.

But Jesus answered them by pointing out that they really did not understand what he was saying, again. He assured them that in due time they would bear the same burden of leadership that he was to bear. But in the meantime, he told them to forget about all this foolishness about who was second in line to be in charge. All the disciples got angry about it. I think some were angry because they did not think of asking Jesus first.

Then he got everyone’s attention to make a point. He said, “The Gentiles have a way of leading that is not the way you should lead. Their rulers act like they have absolute power. They demand absolute loyalty. They treat everyone else as their servant. You are not to be that kind of leader. The way I am is the way you have to be. Leading is by serving. Whoever wants to be great must become great through service. Whoever wants to be first must act like the last and serve everyone else. That is who I am. That is what I have been doing. That is what I will continue to do, even to the point of giving my life for others.”

The gospel of John tells us that he went on to act it out for them soon. At the table of the last supper, he put aside his garments and wrapped himself in the garment of a slave. Then he took a bowl of water and a towel, knelt before them one at a time, and washed their dirty, stinking feet. When he finished, he said that they were to imitate him in this way, serving one another.

So we don’t need leaders who act like tyrants and just expect everyone to do what they say. We don’t need to let politicians treat us that way. We need to teach them to be public servants. We need to move them in the direction of serving those great needs that God is revealing to us as the signs of the times. Shouting condemnation on thieves and drug offenders, throwing them in jail to warehouse them and have them become a low-wage, locked-up labor force is neither justice nor mercy. What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God? Our leaders must learn to serve. We must hold them accountable. Voting is one way to do that, but just voting will not do the job. We also must help them be accountable to the people throughout their terms of service. The world is not as it should be. Our calling as the church is to discern the movement of God and help the world understand how it needs to be changed.

But how about our own leading? What kinds of leaders must we be? Jesus has told us to be servants. So we can’t let our families become the house of Omri. A family is not a place for people to form factions, manipulate and dominate. Divide and conquer will lead to disaster in the family. God has no role for a tyrant in the family. We do not lead by lording over one another. If we cannot find a way to talk with one another in loving ways, to work together in mutual submission toward fulfilling the calling of God, we have missed out on why God has brought us together.

Leading in the family is service. There is no place for violence. When the guys on the job say you have to hit a woman now and then to let her know who is boss, then say “Get thee behind me Satan.” That is a temptation to sin. It is not the word of God. When the women in the coffee room say, “She must have brought it on herself,” say “Watch out, and beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” If you can’t see that using violence to build love is wrong, you are blind to what Jesus has done. The path to loving relationships is through loving actions. If you want to lead, you must learn to serve. If someone can’t lead without violence, then he or she is no different from the ones who crucified our Lord. It must not be so among you, for to be great you must serve.

To be continued . . .