From the Still Point

I was new to the church, and was just getting to know the small staff I had inherited. The youth director attended another church on Sunday mornings, a charismatic congregation known for its contemporary worship which involved people raising their hands, speaking in tongues, and singing Christian pop music, and a high level of emotion. I came to faith through the Charismatic tradition in the mid-1970s so I was both familiar with and comfortable with that aspect of Christianity.

Youth Sunday was coming, and she was trying to get our small, very Presbyterian youth group ready to lead worship for the service, I worked with the young man who was preaching, and she worked with the rest of the kids on the music. I could tell she was getting frustrated because the kids were not singing the songs the way people sang them at the worship services in her congregation.

“Let’s teach this congregation how to REALLY worship,” she said, trying to pump the kids up.

If I was the firing kind of pastor, I would have fired her there on the spot. (I was happy a few months later when, by mutual agreement, we decided her time with us was over.) I was angrier at her then than I have ever been with any employee or co-worker ever.

“Let’s teach this congregation how to REALLY worship,” she said, as if we had spent the last fifty years wasting our time on Sunday mornings.

“Let’s teach this congregation how to REALLY worship,” she said, as if there were only one real way to worship God.

“Let’s teach this congregation how to REALLY worship,” she said, as if worship was only REAL worship when people had been whipped into an emotional frenzy.

          I was sure that our congregation did on Sunday mornings was real worship. And I do not have a problem calling Charismatic services real worship. I have been privileged to worship with Orthodox Christians in Russia, and the liturgy they celebrate is certainly worship.

But that was then, back in the early 2000s. Now I am not so sure.

Years later I was sitting with a group of pastors and we were asked what kinds of idols tempted us.  People trotted out the usual suspects—work, the trappings of an affluent society, power, other people, our own desires—all the things that tend to distract us from our faith.

But I was having a hard time answering.  Of course there are things that distract me from fully engaging with God. There are things that I spend a lot more time on than I spend with God. There are things I enjoy more than I enjoy spending time with God.

But are these idols? Idols are worshipped. I don’t worship my job, my hobbies, or my family. I don’t worship the books I own or the music I listen to, nor do I worship the people who write those books or make that music. Those things are important to me, but I cannot say I worship them.

I looked up idolatry on the web, and stumbled on an article where a person was comparing their compulsion of buying unnecessary junk to idolatry, as if having a house full of unneeded trinkets was the same thing as worshiping in a temple full of idols—or worshiping God in a church.

If that is what they call idolatry, when what in the world is real worship to this person? If idolatry, worship of a false god is just a matter of not dealing with clutter, than what does real worship look like? Dealing with clutter? Is it all that trivial?

That got me to thinking…what do I worship? What do people worship today?

Do we worship anything, including God? In a world of where church services can be more like a musical than anything resembling worship, where churches deliberately tailor worship services for people who are not attracted to worship, where congregations are adopting trendy worship techniques in hope of bringing back young people to dying denominations, where we are almost willing to admit that the survival of the church is no longer going to be about what happens on Sunday, but how we get people involved OUTSIDE our walls,  in a culture where apathy reigns, from politics to religion, it is time to ask whether or not we actually are able to worship anything, idols or God.

In 1997 Ben Folds wrote:

“Will you never rest

Fighting the battle of who could care less

Unearned unhappiness

That’s ok I guess…”

It seems much of our culture is a battle of who could care less.  Take away our social media, smart phones, and internet habits, and what is left for us to care about, much less actually worship? During one protest against the draft I saw a sign that said, “There is nothing worth dying for.”

We have addictions, from porn to Netflix, but not idols. We don’t give ourselves to much of anything anymore. We have gone from Question Authority to Screw Authority. What little political passion we have these days is mostly a stance AGAINST the other side rather than a commitment to real ideals. The Right is active mostly because they despise or fear the Left and the Left is active because they despise or fear the Right.

There is little left that we cannot bend to our own wills. We have a designer culture. When I was a child, there were three news networks. You either got Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC, Walter Cronkite on CBS, or Peter Jennings on ABC. It did not matter what your political affiliations were, those were your choices.

Now liberals can go to MSNBC and Conservatives to Fox News, if you even watch TV news. You can find a political blog or website that matches your political persuasions to a T, and you will never have to even hear an opposing opinion.

There used to be three TV networks. If you wanted to see a show, you had to conform to the network’s schedule and be in front of a TV when they decided to show it. If you wanted to see a movie, you had to see what was playing in the two or three movie theaters in your town. Now you can have more than 500 channels and with the touch of a remote, you can order any movie your heart desires from Amazon or Netflix.

There is very little we have to conform to in our world today. We make the world conform to us.

And the same is true of church today. There are so many churches, and they are all so different that we can find a church that almost exactly matches our theology, politics and spiritual temperament, and never have to deal with anything we really disagree with as we worship God.

But worship is about confronting Something or Someone who is a lot bigger than we are. Karl Barth called it the Wholly Other. In worship we recognize that something (or Someone) exist to whom we must bend the knee.

If we worship a god who is a lot like we are, we can bet that we have created that god. We tend not have worship today as much as we have feel-good fests, where we are able to reinforce our own ideas, biases and opinions. In worship there are times when we should be confronted, and in this world we are hardly confronted by anything we don’t like.

In the end, I am afraid we have the lost the ability to worship. We are creating spiritual affinity groups, not worshiping communities. Like-spirited and like-minded people gather to hear a like-minded minister preach like-minded sermons, and to sing like-minded songs, in the context of a like-minded church service.

Many people would disagree with me, and ask me what I think people do in church on Sunday mornings, but I think the current state of the Church in United States bears me out on this. When we worship Something (or Someone) bigger than we are, we become bigger people. Frankly for the most part the churches in America are full of small-minded people. Granted there are some very large souls out there who manage to keep the whole thing afloat, but they are the exception these days, and not the rule.

But the Church as a whole is fractured, and fracturing more and more every day. There are people who openly advocate hate of other people in the name of Christ, and somehow they have gotten the impression that they can do this openly, and without shame. Rather than worshiping a God who is bigger than they are, they forming spiritual encounter groups to make themselves feel better about themselves.

Worship is the understanding that there IS something (or Someone) that is bigger than our own lives. Even when we include God in the mix, we don’t find much that fits that definition.

GOSPEL LUKE 24:36B-48

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

Matthew and Mark don’t tell us much about what happens after the resurrection, but Luke and John have a couple of really interesting stories, and today’s text is one of them. This is the first time in Luke that Jesus appears to the disciples. They are in the Upper Room, and they are afraid and hiding. They are afraid that someone might be coming after them. They are afraid of who they are and what they did—they all abandoned Jesus. They are afraid because they heard he is back, and they are wondering a) if that could possibly be true, and b) if it is, how is he going to respond to them?
And suddenly Jesus is there in their midst. And it starts to get really freaky. He shows up, and they look like they have seen a ghost…and Jesus notices that. “Hey guys, it’s me! Jesus! You think I’m a ghost. No really, come here. Touch me! Come on, reach your hands out. Here watch, I can put my finger through the hole in my palm!”
And then he really freaks them out…”Hey, is that fish? Mind if I have some?” and he takes a piece of fish and eats it.
And then he gets down to business. “Ok, guys. This is why I am here. Actually this is the why I came in the first place.” And he starts teaching them, first about how it was all a part of God’s plan, but then, then Jesus hits them with the kicker—“…repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

Those are two words we don’t use very often any more—repentance and sin. There are a variety of reasons why these words have fallen out of fashion, but I think it is safe to say that these words are not as meaning for Christians as they might have once been, and even less meaningful for non-Churched people.

One of the most interesting things I do is to come up with the Confession of Sin every week. When I was an intern, I was asked to start writing them for the church was serving, and I asked the pastor how to write them. “Just make sure they are actually confessing sin,” he said. “It is not designed to make them feel good. And don’t have them confessing things that aren’t sins.”

I have been able to visit many churches in my time and I noticed a pattern when it comes to the confession in churches. Most churches tend to confess other people’s sin, not their own. For example a church that is active in feeding the hungry and other aspects of social mission might confess something along the lines of, “Lord, forgive us for ignoring the poor among us.” One the other hand, in churches that are more interested in things like evangelism, they are more likely to confess something like, “Lord, forgive us for not sharing the Good News with our neighbors.”
It is almost like you can tell what a church is really good at doing, because that is what they will confess they are not doing enough of.

The fact is, we don’t like to admit being wrong. Look at some of the public apologies you hear:
“I’m sorry if you took offense at what I said.”
“I deeply regret what happened.”
“If you think I did something wrong, then I am sorry.”
“I’m apologizing for the conduct that it was alleged that I did, and I say I am sorry.”
“Mistakes were made.”
“There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There’s certainly times when I’ve fallen short of God’s standards and my neighbors’ standards. But I think my job is to try to do for my country – and on a very personal level for my children and for my grandchildren and for their future – to try to do everything I can to be a servant in helping this country … I hope that people will see me in that context.”
Where is the “Boy I messed and I am sorry I messed up” apology?”
Occasionally we hear it, but very occasionally.
We don’t like to admit that we have done wrong.
Even to God sometimes. So it is no surprise that when we talk about repentance or forgiveness of sin, we sometimes get a little squirrelly about it.
But in the First letter of John we read, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Now I think part of the problem we have is that we have a view of sin that is too small. Most people think of sin as the things they have done wrong, so during the confession of sin, they might think about whether or not they got angry at someone this week, if they said something they should not have said, if they had bad thoughts, if they might have cheated on their taxes. I am assuming most of you got through the week without killing anyone.

But the notion of sin is bigger than that. And remember humans have an incredible ability to justify their actions, even when they seem clearly wrong to others. So is there a relationship in your life that is troubled. Is there someone who is having some problems with you? In Matthew, Jesus says if a brother or sister has something against YOU then it is up to you to try to go fix it. Don’t wait for them to take the initiative.

But the notion of sin is even bigger than that. Let’s look at the story of the destruction of Sodom. If you remember that story, a group of angels disguised as people come visiting a man named Lot who lived in Sodom. Word got out, and group of people from the town came over to Lot’s house to rape these visitors. And God ends up destroying the town.
Why did God destroy the whole town? Not everyone was a part of the group who wanted to rape the angels. Why did everyone die?

Because they were part of a system where that kind of thing could happen. And they did not do anything to stop it. I remember growing up in a small town in the South, and seeing how black people were treated. They were treated that way because many good white people let it happen. Now I was also able to see what can happen when those good people, black and white, begin to stand up and say, “This is not right!” But it’s not like everyone in the South was a bad person before the civil rights movement. There were many good people who lived in the South, many Atticus Finches. They just didn’t speak up. They were part of a sinful system, and by remaining silent, they were complicit.

Imagine if, instead of the regular type of confession we have here, I did this way. Ok, everyone who committed murder this week, raise your hand. Ok, I see those hands. Everyone who committed Adultery. Everyone who took the Lord’s name in vain. Everyone who was envious of what their neighbor has.

Ok, everyone who got angry at someone this week, and who said something they regret, Ok, everyone who had someone get angry at them, and didn’t fix the situation, raise your hand. Ok, everyone who took advantage of another person this week, raise your hand.

Ok everyone who profited from injustice this week, raise your hand. If you wore a piece of clothing sewed by a ten-year old kid in some Bangladeshi sweat shop, raise your hand. If you ate food that was grown by taking water from someone who needed it to live, or if you lived on land that was stolen in the past from someone or some tribe, raise your hand.

All of sudden we see that sin is a lot bigger category. But so does grace. I am not increasing the scope of sin so that you will feel worse about your life, but so that you will understand how great God’s grace is really is. You, and everyone sitting in here, is forgiven for the sins we confess.

Now is when we bring in the need for repentance, another word that is hard for us, possibly because we think too small when we think of it. The point about talking about sin is not to make you feel guilty. Gee, thanks for reminding me that the blue jeans I wear on Saturday might be the product of an injustice against a ten-year old boy, the coffee I drink might keep others from having food on their table. Now I can’t even enjoy my coffee anymore.

That’s not the point. Now in my time I have met a lot of people who enjoy making other people feel guilty, and at times I have been guilty of that very thing myself. It’s a complicated world out there, and we are all interconnected and sometimes the connections end up benefiting one group of people at the expense of another. We can either shrug our shoulders and ignore it, feel guilty about it, and just confess it every week, or seek repentance.
But we have to understand that repentance is not just saying “I’m sorry,” week after week after week. It is bigger than that. Repentance means change.

Now if we are personally doing something wrong, if we have personally insulted someone, or have hurt someone, or have deliberately ignored God, then we need to personally repent of that. If I say something that hurts my wife or my kids or one of you, I need to make that good somehow.

But when it comes to the bigger sins, we need to take bigger actions, and we need to do it corporately. For example, I might realize that there are food inequalities in the world. And there are. Now I can respond to that by just buying natural foods, or by not eating certain things, or by boycotting some companies, but that only goes so far. I boyucotted Nestles for years because they market infant formula to women who don’t have access to clean drinking water, who end up giving their kids dysentery by feeding them that formula. Well, that helped me feel better, but I am not sure how much it really changed.

On the other hand, if you realize there is food inequity, you can help out at a food bank. I don’t know how the food bank got started here. I bet that is an interesting story, though, and at some level I bet it is an attempt to right some wrongs in the ways we do distribute food in the world today. Our food bank is a sign and work of repentance. And remember Jesus said, “…repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.”

We can’t fix all the problems in the world. As a matter of fact, I am not sure some of the problems can be fixed, but we can help right some wrongs. We can repent, if you will, by making changes where we can. We will take up the noisy offering this morning, and the money from that will go to help people, either here in Medford, or somewhere else in the world. We work with the food bank. We can make changes in our lives, and changes in the world—if only small changes.
This is the good news—Repent! And help change the world.

PSALM 118:1-2, 19-29

1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his steadfast love endures for ever!
2 Let Israel say,
“His steadfast love endures for ever.”
19 Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.
21 I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
22 The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
23 This is the LORD’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
25 Save us, we beseech you, O LORD!
O LORD, we beseech you, give us success!
26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.
We bless you from the house of the LORD.
27 The LORD is God,
and he has given us light.
Bind the festal procession with branches,
up to the horns of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
you are my God, I will extol you.
29 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

READING MARK 11:1-11
1When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 2and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. 7Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 8Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. 9Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
“Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
11Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

When I was in college there was an album that I swear must have been standard issue for every college dorm room—Frampton Comes Alive. You could hear it playing from five to ten rooms simultaneously, and every time you turned on the radio, you got serenaded by Mr. Frampton, pleading with you to show him the way.

In 1977 Rolling Stone called him the Artist of the Decade. And that was pretty the time anyone heard of Peter Frampton. He disappeared just as quickly and just as dramatically as he appeared.
That has happened countless times—from artists to politicians, from TV celebrities to world leaders. Up one minute, and down the next.

And that is what happened to Jesus on Holy Week. He came into Jerusalem to shouts of praise and acclamation. But by Friday the people who were singing his praises were not calling for his execution.

How could things have turned around so dramatically? To understand that you have to understand a little about the political situation at the time. The whole country had been run by a king named Herod at the time of Jesus’ birth, but he was so cruel and so corrupt that when he died most of the people were actually glad to see the country partitioned, and a Roman led government set up in Jerusalem. One of Herod’s relatives, who was also called Herod was set up as the ruler of Galilee. But at the time when Jesus entered Jerusalem, that area was officially ruled by the Romans.

Their governing of the area was not all that successful. It was not one of the best places to be posted if you were a rising young Roman, and was often ruled by incompetents, the last of which was Pontius Pilate. Pilate had caused a stir when, to show his authority, he put up Roman eagles on the doors of the Temple. That caused a riot which lasted for days, and he had to take them.

Basically Pilate was one of those leaders who folded when he should have stood firm, and stood firm when he should have been flexible. It had been almost thirty years since the corrupt and cruel Herod had ruled, and most people forgot how bad he was. So they were ready for a change.

The other party ruling Jerusalem was the Sanhedrin, The Romans had learned that if they did anything the people pitched a fit. So, like many colonial powers, the appointed some locals to be the local face of authority, and instead of actually controlling the country, they controlled, more or less, the local governing authorities, which was the Sanhedrin, and they let the Sanhedrin rule the country in their place. Most Romans actually lived in the city of Caesarea, which was a coastal resort town, far from Jerusalem.

By the time Jesus makes his Palm Sunday appearance, the people are sick and tired of both the Romans and the Sanhedrin. They had heard of this rabble rousing rabbi, and thought he just might be the one who would get rid of both the Romans and the Sanhedrin. Jesus had deliberately taken the long way into Jerusalem, through Jericho, and taught and preached along the way. He made it known, before the left Galilee, that he WAS heading for Jerusalem, and the something really big was going to happen there, and as he travelled there, the word begun to spread.

So when Jesus is just outside the gates, people knew he was coming, and they had high hopes that he just might the One who could free them from all their troubles. He might be the one who could free them from the Romans, and who could help them get their country back. He could be the one who could reestablish the reign of God back in their country, who could bring back the good ole days when King David ruled the country. He could make them a contender on the world stage, and not just a second rate back water country.

Or, he could at least provide them with some entertainment along the way. If he was not the one, they at least hoped he would put on a good show for them.

So they grabbed their palm branches, which were a “secret” sign of revolt against Rome, and they headed out to meet him as he entered.

****

I can only imagine what Jesus is thinking as he is moving through the crowd on Palm Sunday. He sees the excited crowds, and he knows what they are expecting of him. And he knows he will not fulfill their expectations. Not only that, he knows that by the end of the week, many of the people who are now praising him and who think he is the greatest thing since Roman Numerals will soon be calling for his execution.

So what is he thinking as he enters? What is going through his head as he sees the smiling faces all around him, knowing that some of these same people will be scowling at him in just a few days?

He knows his mission and he knows that it is not what the people want to see. It is easy for them to throw a parade today, but he knows their commitment to him is mile wide, but only an inch deep. Anyone can join a victory parade, especially they had nothing to do with the victory.

But Jesus does not measure his worth by what the crowd thinks of him. His agenda is not set by what will make him popular. He knows that there are things he could do, which would make his stock soar with the crowd, but he also knows that is not what he has set out to do. That would be a detour from his main mission and at this point he cannot afford any side trips.

His job is not to save a country, but to save humanity. He does not want to be a temporal earthly king, subject to all the demands of the political situation. He has bigger fish to fry. He knows political gains are always short term gains, and he has his eye on the eternal. He is not looking to get people’s approval. He is looking to get into their souls. He is not looking to supply them with bread for a day, but with spiritual nurture for life. He is not looking to make a difference in their circumstances. He wants to be the difference in their entire lives.

So the crowds don’t faze him. He is not seduced by them. He does not need their approval. He is not out courting votes, or organizing supporters so he can get his agenda passed.

Jesus knows that you are not defined by who the crowd thinks you are. The crowd may praise you, or the crowd may jeer you, but that says more about that crowd than about you.

Jesus did not come to set up his own version of power politics. He did not come to win more power for him and his. He did not even come to change that game.

He came to set up a whole new game, called the church. Of course, he got crucified for that.

He did not take on the Romans, or the Sanhedrin. He did not go after political power, he did not try to set himself up as the New King of Jerusalem. And the people noticed, and they were disappointed. His own followers began to grow impatient. Instead of attacking the Romans, he went after the religious hypocrites of his day. Instead of going after the dirty sinners and the foreigners, he went after the self-righteous. Instead of going after the political oppressors, he went after things and the people who oppress our souls.

He did not play the game the people expected him to play. I think that was why he was killed. If he had played the game, the people would have supported him, but the religious authorities and the political authorities knew they could eventually end up controlling him. If he played their game, he would have ended up as one of them. And then he might have proved quite useful to the religious and political authorities of his day.

But he did NOT play their game, and I think that is what scared them. They realized he was a man they could never control. He could not be controlled by the crowds; he would never play to them to get their approval, and he could not be controlled by the powerbrokers of his day. He would never try to outdo them by becoming one of them.

He was doing something completely different.

And that scared them.

He could not be coopted. He could not be corrupted. He could not be used. And so in the end he was useless to the crowds, so they called for his crucifixion. He was useless to the powerbrokers, and so they had him crucified.

It is always tempting to play to the crowd, to play to the powerbrokers. It is always tempting to play the game the society around you wants you to play. Over many centuries, at many different times, the Church of Jesus Christ has done that. When it did it often got temporary political power and popularity, but it always lost more than it got.

In this world we do that. And for the most part there is nothing wrong with it. I have played the political game, and it is a fun game. But please, let us NOT do this in the name of Jesus. That demeans his name. That cheapens what he really did on after Palm Sunday, and it brings Jesus down to our level; it does not raise us to the level of Jesus.

We are entering an election year, and we are going to see people running campaigns and advocating worldly political power agendas and some will be claiming to do it for God. And that is just a lie. People who say that are deluding themselves and others (or maybe just others), and there is nothing godly about what they doing.

Any politician who equates an earthly political agenda with the Will of God has cheapened God. They are misrepresenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God does not have a political agenda, at least not the ones that either the Left or the Right in America is interesting in pursuing. Let me say this clearly. If anyone claims that God is behind their political agenda, they are lying to themselves and you. Or they are just lying to you.

This is not to say that some politicians are not influenced by God. I have met a few who were devout in their beliefs, and one even told me he made the decision to run for governor of Alaska sitting in a worship service in my old church. But he never told anyone else that, and he certainly did not run as if he were God’s Own Candidate, which is a good thing, because he lost in the primary.

The Church of Jesus Christ is NEVER called to play the game of power politics, and we certainly never are to do it in the Name of Jesus. We are taking His name in vain if we do that. The Church of Jesus Christ is not called to be powerful or popular. We are called to be faithful.

Whenever the church tried to be powerful or popular, it stopped being faithful and then lost both power and popularity. All through history you see times when the church is pursuing power or popularity and it NEVER turns out well. I wish the Evangelical Right would learn this. You see, the trappings of the world are fickle. Crowds may gather to cheer you on, but later those same crowds may turn on you, and cheers turn to jeers. Jesus knew that, which is why he was not tempted or persuaded by the crowds. He knew his mission. He knew what he was about and he did not need the world, he did not need the crowds to validate who he was.

Had he not remained faithful, he would never have been our savior. Had he fallen sway to the seductive influence of the crowds, had he tried to outmaneuver the power brokers of his day, he would have been a mere flash in the pan. But because he remained faithful, faith as Paul says even to death, he become the Lord and ruler of all Creation.

The church’s only power is its ability to remain faithful to what God is calling us to do. The Church’s only popularity contest is to be popular with God, who calls the Church into being.

If we chase earthly power and popularity, we will be no heavenly good. If we put our faith in the crowds or the politicians, we betray the God who formed us.

But if we remain faithful we will be powerful instruments of God, who have something to offer to the masses. They do not sway us. We minister to them.

As the people of God, may we shun the agendas of others, and remain faithful to our calling in Jesus Christ—to love and to serve.

Amen.

In order to live, sometimes something in us has to die. If we are going to live in the Promised Land, we have to let go the parts of Egypt that still cling to us.

JEREMIAH 31:31-34
31The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

JOHN 12:20-33
20Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
27“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say — ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Can you think of something that is a positive live event, but which can also cause you to grieve?

When I was working as a chaplain in the hospital, I used to do groups in the behavioral health ward, one of which was a grief group. I started the group by asking group members to list the life events that can cause grief. They usually came up with the major events: death of a loved one, divorce, getting fired or laid off from a job—things that most people would consider part of life’s tragedies.

But then I would ask them if they could think of any life events which were generally thought to be positive, but which can still cause people to grieve. Can you think of any?

The one that comes immediately to my mind is watching your children grow up. My daughter was really into music. She and I did a radio show together, and I learned more about current music from her than from anyone else in my adult life. After she has left for college I was doing some cleaning around the house, and I found the first CD I ever bought her. It brought back memories of the excited 12-year old girl, who shared all the lyrics with me.
And I missed that 12-year old year. She was gone, never to return again. At the time I found that CD she was a freshman in college, who had done very well in high school, and who looked to have a successful future. She was 19 years old, and a very mature 19 years old. I was extremely glad that my 19-year old daughter was acting like a mature 19-year old. That was a very good thing. If, at 19 she was still acting like a 12-year old, that would be very bad.

Nevertheless, I still missed that 12-year old girl. She was gone. She grew up. She changed. She changed for the better, but she changed. She is no longer who she was. That’s a good thing. But in some ways a sad thing.

We tend to find that change is very hard. We don’t like change.

Today’s lessons are about change.

Jesus knows how hard change is. He says it is like death. He says a time is coming when He will be changed—he will be glorified, and he immediately follows that up by saying, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

Some change is like death, Jesus says. Not all change, but sometimes significant change is like death. Something has to die so that something else can live. The 12-year had to do change, had to disappear, had to die, so that the 19-year old could live.

Think about some major changes in your own life. In order to make the change, you have to let go of some things. You had to let them die. When you take a new job, you have to let go of the old job. When you get married, as the Bible says, you have to leave your family behind, and cleave to your spouse. When you have children, there is a lot that you have to leave behind to become a parent. Now perhaps death is too strong a metaphor for most changes, but if nothing else Jesus is saying that major change entails major loss.

When the Israelites left the slavery of Egypt, slavery was all they knew. They were slaves. Their parents were slaves. Their grandparents were slaves. Their great-grandparents were slaves. They knew of the slaves and masters, oppressors and oppressed, but what did they know of freedom? What did they know of love?

So when the things started to get tough out in the desert, what did they do? They longed for Egypt. They longed to be slaves again, because THAT WAS ALL THEY KNEW. Believe or not, slavery was their comfort zone. Yes, it was horrid, but it was the devil they knew. Being out in the wilderness was scary. It was full of unknowns. At least when they were slaves, they knew what to expect.

So, believe or not, they often longed for the days of slavery. That is actually not all that unusual. An alcoholic or drug addict will do the same thing. They know that substance abuse may be killing them, but when life gets hard, many will long to return to the bottle or crack pipe because it is familiar. It is what they know. People who were abused as children often end up in abusive relationships as adults because that is all they know. I once counseled someone who was in an abusive relationship, and who had a background of abuse. I asked her if her current relationship was healthy, and she was surprised at the question. It never occurred to her that a relationship could be healthy!

For Israel, if they were to become the people of God, the Egypt within them must die. That part of them that was still a slave had to die. They could not take that into the Promised Land. They could not take pattern of Master and Slave, Oppressor and Oppressed with them into the promise land. They could recreate Egypt in Canaan. Egypt had to die, so that freedom could truly live.

In the same way as we enter into whatever Promised Land God has for us, Egypt, that part of us that keeps us down, has to die. Jesus said that in order for him to be glorified he had to die. He had to make a SERIOUS change. Now he was talking about his mortal body, but he goes on and he invites us to join him in death.

In order for us to truly come into glory, there are parts of us that have to die. Parts of us have to change. You cannot bring the anxiety of Egypt into the Kingdom of God, for example. In Egypt we fret about making ends meet, about making sure we can pay the bills, we worry about having enough to what we are supposed to do. But in the Kingdom of God, that kind of anxiety is like wearing a tux to a pool party. Or a swimsuit to a formal dinner. We should be wise stewards, yes. But anxious? Never. Do we not believe that God is in control?

Social rank and status have no place in the kingdom of God. That the way of Egypt. We are not defined by who we know or what we make or what we own, or what job we have or had. We are children of God. All of us. From the people who come to get food on Wednesdays to the founders of this church, we are all equal in God’s eyes. From the richest to the poorest, we are all an important part of what God is doing here.

Fear has not place in the Promised Land. In Egypt we are often driven by fear. Did you notice that last September and October the news was full of stories of Ebola, how radical Islam was taking over all the Middle East, and how the economy was falling apart? I’m a news junkie, but I tell you it was so depressing I stopped listening to the news. After the election in November we went back to hearing about George Clooney’s wedding and looking at cute cat pictures on the internet.

The slave masters of Egypt know that if they can make us afraid, they can control us. How often we react to political situations based on what we are afraid of, not what we actually want to see happen? I guess that is why it does not bother us that Congress is deadlocked. We are so afraid of what they might do that is bad, we would rather they not do anything at all.

In talking with other pastors about the current State of the Church, I hear a lot about what we should fear. The Church is shrinking, it is growing older, it is becoming more and irrelevant to people’s lives. Fewer and fewer people attending church, especially young people. There is more bad publicity about Christians than good PR. If I was looking to be afraid, there is a lot to be afraid of, but that is the way of Egypt. Fear has to die if we are truly going to enjoy the Promised Land.

So if we are willing to leave Egypt, then what are we heading toward? What is the Promised Land for us today?

Now let’s look at the Old Testament lesson.

In the Jeremiah lesson, God says,

31The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

Now at this point there must be a lot of people asking, “What was wrong with the old covenant? It was a perfectly good covenant. We don’t need a new one. I just got used to the old one.”

But God goes on.

32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.

Remember when I did the sermon on the Ten Commandments a few weeks ago? I made the case they were more like wedding vows than legal code, and here we find God saying the commandments were a sign that he was the husband of the people of God. But he seems to be changing the wedding vows.

33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

When I marry someone, there are usually two sets of vows in the service. The first are the traditional vows; Do you, [fill in the blank] take [fill in the blank] to be your lawfully wedded wife,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse;
for richer, for poorer;
in sickness and in health;
to love and to cherish,
so long as we both shall live?

Those are the traditional vows, and I don’t give the bride or groom a choice in those. That is the old covenant.

But I also ask them to write their own vows, promises that they make one another, which come from their own heart. I have yet to have anyone object to the traditional vows, but plenty ask me, “Do we really have to write our own vows?

In essence they were saying, “I don’t mind you giving us vows that we need to keep, but we would rather not make up our own vows.” Now to my way of thinking, those are the most important vows. It is one thing to say to the person that you love, “I agree with what that person says our marriage should be like. But I am not sure I can articulate within my own heart what I think our marriage should look like.”

Is that much different for some people when it comes to their relationship with God? They don’t mind being told what their relationship with God should look like. They like the comfortable black and white world view where they don’t have to figure anything out on their own. They just read a book, listen to some sermons, and they know all they need to know about God. All the answers are found in the Holy Book and the teachings of the clergy.

Some people want all the answers in a clear, concise, and non-confusing manner. They don’t want complexity or shades of meaning. They don’t want gray areas. They don’t want any uncertainty.

But that is not what God promises. That is Egypt, and in Egypt God is little more than just another slave master—perhaps a kinder, gentler master, but still a slave master. We are not children of God in Egypt, we are not friends, we are slaves.

But love is not about keeping the rules. It is a relationship. And relationships are harder than rules. I don’t have to have a relationship with the police officer who is giving me a speeding ticket, or with the IRS man who is saying I owe taxes. I just do what they say.

I have a relationship with God. In John 15:15 Jesus says, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends.” A relationship based on love is a totally different thing from a relationship where one is a slave and the other is a master.

God gave the people wedding vows in the Ten Commandments, but in Jeremiah we hear that God will put the law in hearts. Those are the vows we write together. That is where we acknowledge that God lives in us, and our lives are held in God’s hands.

We are never liberated into total freedom. Freedom always comes with responsibility. I have responsibilities within my marriage. The vows that I ask couples to write are still vows. But they come from the heart, not from an outside authority. They come from the essence of the relationship, not from obligations of slavery.

I once heard a speaker tell about getting on a bus, and a blind man got on the same bus at the next stop. He could tell he was blind because he had a Seeing Eye dog. The dog led the man to an empty seat, nudged him toward it, and when the man was seated, got himself comfortable under the seat. The dog apparently knew which stop they were getting off at, because he got up even before the man did, nosed his way out into the aisle, and made it possible for the man to get up without bumping into other people. He led the man off the bus and down the street.

The person who told this story said he was so impressed by this, that he following the man off the bus and said to him, “That is an incredibly well trained dog you have.”

The blind man said, “This not a trained dog.”

“Not a trained dog? But I saw him lead you onto the bus, into a empty seat, and get you off the bus at your stop. How can you see he is not a trained dog?”

“He’s not a trained dog. He is an educated dog.”

“Well then, what’s the difference between a trained dog and an educated dog?”

“A trained dog, you say ‘go,’ he goes. You say ‘stop,’ he stops. And educated dog, you say ‘go’ and if it is not safe to go, he won’t go. You say ‘stop’ and if it is not safe to stop, he won’t stop. An educated dog does not just follow orders. He does what is best for you.”

God does not want us to be trained dogs. God wants us to be educated. God wants us to follow the law written in our hearts, not just some abstract legal/religious moral code. God wants us to love, in the way God has equipped us to love.

The law in your heart will be exactly what is written in your neighbor’s heart. That is why Jeremiah says, “No longer shall they teach one another….” A person cannot just teach another person what to do anymore, because it is no longer just about following the whims and will of a slave master. It is about a relationship.

Now I have to honest, that means change and for some people that kind of change is death. They want Egypt, they want rules and regulations, they want to be told what to do. But that is the way of Egypt. And we live, we are invited to live in the Promised Land, where the relationships are not master/slave, but Child and Father. We live in the land of love, not the land of law. We live the New Covenant of God.

NUMBERS 21:4-9
4From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”6Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

JOHN 3:14-21
14“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

When I was a pastor in North Carolina I worked with my Presbytery on a committee that helped churches turn around membership declines. Our committee would come in, get to know the church, and try to help them brainstorm ideas about how to turn their decline around
Some churches had a lot of hope, and with some work, could turn themselves around. Others…well God can do the impossible, so I never wrote them off, but…
The first church we visited was the second kind. It was an old, established rural church that was essentially run by three major families, and they were pretty much down to the three major families.
.
Before our meeting with the church I asked a friend to do some reconnaissance and visit the congregation, undercover. None of the church members knew we had asked him to visit.
He reported it was the most unpleasant church experience in his life. The first thing that happened to him was that he was overwhelmed with attention. “A VISITOR!” People were all over him before he could get to his seat. But it was not the kind of attention might get when people care about you. It was the kind of attention you might get from someone who was ready to consume you. He said he felt like Hansel and Gretel in the witch’s kitchen.
Then it turned ugly. One of the members was talking to him, when another member came up and realized that the first member was being a bit too pushy, and right there, in front of God and everyone, attacked that person for being too pushy. Then someone went after the person who had attacked the first member for attacking them. He thought a fistfight might break out before the service even started. Needless to say my friend was in no way interested in staying for coffee after the service, and took off during the last hymn.
When we met with the church later that week, the whole meeting was about the visitor, and how badly all the other people had treated them. As soon as we started our meeting, I starting feeling really anxious. This was a church that was affected with anxiety, and it was contagious. No one took responsibility for their actions; they just wanted to talk about how everyone else had driven the visitor away.
Later I realized what was going on with that congregation. They were so driven by their anxiety and fear that they could not act like decent church members. Attacking others had become the norm there, because no one could face up to the problems they had with any sense of reality.
During that meeting I was reminded of the story of the serpents in Numbers, because I felt like I had stumbled into a den of serpents!
In the Old Testament Lesson, we find the people out in the desert, and they have been there for so long, they have forgotten why they were there. They have forgotten how bad it was in Egypt. As a matter of fact when they think about Egypt, all they can remember are the good times. “Boy back in Egypt everything was great! But now we are stuck out in this desert. Nothing to eat but manna. I am sure getting tired of manna. Manna burgers! Manna pizza! Manana bread! I wish we were back there where we had real food and shelter. Why did you bring us out here to die?”
They grumbled. They murmured. They moaned and complained, and bellyached. Well usually when a group of people bellyache, the results are not good, but in this case they were disastrous.

In other words, when you have a group of people, and all they can do is moan and complain, it is as if a horde of serpents have attacked. Now I am not going to dwell on this part of the story, because, well, this is not our story here at First Church. We don’t have a lot of bellyachers in this congregation, and that is a blessing.
But that is not to say that there are not serpents out there. Maybe our serpents didn’t come from bellyaching, but there are serpents. It’s not all sugar and spice out there. And sometimes the serpents around us can make us act in ways that are not healthy.
What are the serpents in our lives?
We can start with the obvious. Death is the biggie. To think there will be a time when we are not is an unpleasant thought at best. It can be a great fear.
But there are other serpents out there. Loss of control. You know why it bothers you that you have to get a ten year old to show you how to use your phone? Because it shows we have lost some control over our world. As we get older, we find there are less things we can do and feel like we are losing control of our lives.
Driving, physical activities, and probably many of us fear that day when we will end up in a hospital bed, being taken care of by others.
Change can be a major serpent. The world is changing. Last Saturday Angelee and I went to Best Buy to look at some stuff. I headed over to the CDs, and I have to tell you, it was a depressing experience. For most of my life, one of my favorite things was going to a record store, and flipping through the albums. That was back when albums had real album covers! I would look for new releases by bands I liked, or maybe I would find an older LP they did. Or I would find something totally new.
Well albums gave way to CDs, and I made that change ok, but now everybody buys their music online. I thought I might flip through the CDs at Best Buy but they hardly had any at all. I realized my world had changed, and one of my favorite activities for most of my life had disappeared.
The world is changing. Some people are dealing with it fairly well, while others are having a very hard time with it. The more things do change, the more some people will fight to keep the same. But that is a losing battle.
Another serpent is Intimacy—we fear that people will get to know the real us, and that they won’t like what they see. We fear people will get so know things about us that we don’t want anyone else to know, so we hide a great deal of ourselves from others. Or worse yet, we hide those parts from ourselves. We don’t even admit to ourselves who we really are, what our flaws are.
There are plenty of other serpents out there. Poverty. Loneliness. Illness. Losing someone or something we love. For some people retirement is a serpent. Children leaving the nest is a serpent for some people. Some people fear whatever the other political party is. Others fear different religions. Or anything different for that matter.
Oh there are all kinds of snakes out there. The children of God, in the desert, were up to their eyeballs in snakes. So are we, but they are serpents of a different sort.
So what is the solution? We have the disease. What is the cure?
Now, here is where the story gets really interesting. The cure for serpents was….looking at a serpent. They were told to put a bronze serpent on a pole, and if they looked up to that, they would not succumb to the venomous bites.
In other words, the thing they feared the most was exactly the thing they needed to gaze upon. That may not make sense, but think about it—the things you feel the most are the very things that will end up controlling your life if you are not careful.
Your fears will control your life, often in ways you are not even aware of. Someone, for instance, who is afraid of being alone may be so anxious when they finally get into a relationship that they end up sabotaging it. And they end up alone. Or they get want a relationship in the worst kind of way, and so they end up in the worst kind of relationship.
The church I referred to was so afraid of dying that they were almost guaranteeing their own death.
The more you fear something, the more power you give it over yourself.
If you really fear death, you may be so busy avoiding death that you never get a chance to live. If you fear change, you may become so entrenched in what was that you can never enjoy what is. We might cling so hard to our sense of control that we lose sight of the things that are in our control. We are so afraid of others getting to know the worst things about us that we never let them see the best things about us.
And the way we keep from letting our fears control us is to look them in the eyes. We put that serpent up on a pole, and we stare at it until we realize the real thing has no power over us.
If it is true that our fears can be the thing that control our lives, in the same way the very things we fear can be what saves us. The thing that threatens to undo us is in fact the very thing that brings us real and true life.
Whatever we fear can become our agenda for growth. Our serpents can be our salvation. We just need to bring them into the light of day. That is where the Gospel lesson comes in.
Most of us are familiar with John 3:16:
16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
But what about the verses that come just before it?
14“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
The serpent in the desert becomes the sign of our salvation.
Then Jesus goes on to talk about the difference between light and darkness.
19-21 “This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God.”
The darkness can hide all manner of evil, but it also magnifies it, and changes good into evil.
When I was in fourth grade I took a paper route. I had to deliver 125 morning papers and around 100 afternoon papers. The morning papers had be delivered by 6:30 on weekdays, 7:00 on weekends. That meant I had to get up and start by 4:30. In. The. Morning.
The first morning was pretty scary. As I was riding my bike in the darkness around the neighborhood I saw what looked like all manner of scary things. Here was a huge dog, lying in wait for me. There was some kind of creature I had never seen before. Was that a person following me? And what was that thing in the shadows around the house that lay all by itself at the very end of a deserted road?
But in the afternoon it had all changed in the light of day. The huge dog was just a bush. The strange creature was a dogwood tree. The person following me was my shadow in the streetlight. The thing in the shadows was a tractor. In the light of day it all looked so different.
If we are willing to let what we fear come into the light, we can overcome our fears. Whatever we fear becomes our agenda for growth.
It is natural to keep what we fear in the shadows. If our bank account may be overdrawn, we don’t want to look at the bank statement. If we are having problems in our relationships, we don’t keep looking at pictures of the person with whom we are fighting. If our marriage is in a rocky place, we don’t want to see a romantic movie. If we are afraid of losing our job, we might shudder at the sight of help wanted ads.
We want to keep the things that we fear in the shadows. But that only makes them look that much scarier.
If we can look what we fear right between the eyes, then it no longer has any power over us.
I remember many years ago, wanting to quit my nice job at the bank, and I wanted to go to seminary. My plans at the time were to get my Master’s of Divinity, then a Ph.D, and eventually teach theology at a seminary or college.
But I was afraid. I was afraid to quit my comfortable job, I was afraid I might not get into seminary, I was afraid I might not find a job. I was afraid that I might start the process, and not be able to finish it.
A wise person sat me down as asked, “What is the worst that can happen?” At the time I thought the worst thing that could happen was that I would finish my master’s but not be able to get my Ph.D. If that happened, then I would be able to teach. I would have to become a pastor, and to be honest, I was pretty sure I did not want to do that.
Well, for various reasons, that is exactly what happened to me. But guess what. That was not the worst thing that could happen. As it turned out, that was the best thing that could happen.
Of course it is not always like that. Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is indeed the worst that could happen.
But if we can look even death in the eye, if we can truly walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil, then we can know what it is like to truly live.
What are you afraid of? Can you look it in the eye? Can you put it on a pole, and stare at it?

EXODUS 20:1-17
1Then God spoke all these words:
2I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3you shall have no other gods before me.
4You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9For six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
12Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
13You shall not murder.
14You shall not commit adultery.
15You shall not steal.
16You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

GOSPEL JOHN 2:13-22
13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

A Supreme Court Judge in Alabama, Justice Roy Moore, put a huge monument of the Ten Commandments up in the Alabama Supreme Court building. There was a huge brouhaha about it, because a federal judge ruled it had to be removed, and he refused to do it, and Justice Moore was eventually removed from the court because of that.
I think that judge was confused on the issue of what the Ten Commandments are really about. As I understand it, he thinks the Ten Commandments underpins the constitution and without the commandments, we would have no moral authority behind our secular law. Further, Justice Moore said, “The Ten Commandments are the divinely revealed law.”
Well, as a student of the Bible, I beg to differ. I don’t think he gets what the Ten Commandments are really about.
Traditionally the Jews do not call them the Ten Commandments which in Hebrew would be Aseret ha-Mitzvot. Instead they are called Aseret ha-Dibrot, the Ten Sayings or the Ten Teachings.
In other words, they view these, not as part of a law that we are required to keep, but as words of wisdom that lead up to a fuller life.
So as we approach the Ten Commandments (or Ten Sayings) this morning, don’t think of them the same way you might think of tax laws, or zoning codes, or anything like that. These are a teachings to help us live our lives in a fuller, more enriching way.
And within Judaism there is a richer, fuller understanding of them.
There is a tradition in Judaism that when Moses went up on Mount Sinai to receive the law, the mountain rose above the people. The early rabbis took this literally, and debated what that meant. One rabbi said that the mountain hovered over the people as a warning. If they refused the law, God would drop the mountain on them, kill them all, and start all over again with a new set of chosen people.
When the rabbis heard this interpretation they agreed until one rabbi said, “No. When the mountain hovered over the people, it was a wedding canopy. The Ten Sayings are the wedding vows between God and his beloved, the people of God.”
And this is how the Jews traditionally understand what we call the Ten Commandments. They are not an example of laws that govern a nation. They are teachings that bring us closer to God.
Look at how they start.
2I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
I am your God. I have acted on your behalf. I have chosen you. You were slaves, and I freed you. I want to have a relationship with you. And then God says,

3you shall have no other gods before me.
God has chosen us. Going back to the whole idea of marriage, we come under the wedding canopy because God has chosen us, and we have chosen God.
When I got married, I made promise; my wife comes before all other people. We stood before a crowd of witnesses, and said, “I chose you, and no other.”
It would not be much of a marriage if I came home with a new girlfriend. As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure the marriage would be over very soon! But I chose my wife! I do that every day.
A long time ago, I accepted the fact that God had chosen me. For me, that was an explicit choice. I made a definite commitment to God. It’s not that way for everyone. For some people it is a life-long relationship. They cannot remember a time when they had another God, or no god in their life. How we come into this relationship with God is not what is really important. How we maintain that relationship is very important. And part of maintaining that relationships is to be faithful to the God who has chosen us.
Now I have studied other religions. I have books on Buddhism and Hinduism and Taoism and Islam in my office. I find that interesting, and I learn things about my faith by studying other faiths.
While my wife is my best friend, I have other friends. But my relationship with them is very different from my relationship with my wife. So my relationship with other religions is very different from my relationship with God.
My commitment is to God. That can never be a strong commitment if I am always wavering between the God that chose me, and other gods.

4You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
The great thing about an idol is that you can make it be whatever you want it to be. An idol is a small thing, and you can easily manipulate it. I want a god who can make me rich, so I find an idol, one that I can control. That is not a relationship. We all have an image of what we WANT God to be.
There was a street preacher in London’s Hyde Park who was giving a sermon on the book of Job. Now part of the experience in speaking in Hyde Park is the hecklers, and this man was being heckled. The preacher finally turned to his heckler and said, “I realize that it is almost inconceivable to think that the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, the Great I Am, the God who formed the monsters of the deep and the who gave wing to the birds of the air, the God who spoke to Moses in the burning bush and who brought the plagues to Egypt, would not in every instance behave a perfect English gentleman, but there you have it-I can do nothing about it.”
God is not always a proper English Gentleman. God is not always a conservative, right winger. God is not always a progressive liberal. God is not always a proper Presbyterian who does all things decently and in order. God is bigger than all of these categories, and when we shrink God down to any category like this, we have turned God into an idol.
You know, when we first meet other people, we form a first impression. We get an idea in our heads of what they are like. But in most cases, most people are much more complicated than how we see them. I know that when I met people, and they find out I am a pastor, they have an idea of what a pastor must be like. If they get to know me, they will find out what I am like, and how I am both like and different from their idea of what a pastor should be.
When we get into relationships, we have an idea of what are friends are like, even of what our spouses are life, but at some point we need to let go of those ideas, and let them be who they really are. If we want to have a mature relationship with anyone, we have to learn to let them be themselves, and not expect them to conform to our idea of what they ought to be like. In the same way, if we want a mature relationship with God, we have to let God be God, and let go of our ideas of what God should be like.

7You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

I like the way this is worded here. The traditional way I have heard it is that we don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. For years I thought all that meant was that we don’t use the words “God” or “Jesus” when we cuss. I learned it was much larger than that.
When we use God’s name to back up our own ideas and opinions, we are taking God’s name in vain. When we back up our own prejudices by referring to God, we are using God’s name wrongly. Whether we are talking about Health Care, tax cuts, or gun control, when we pull God over to our side, we are using God’s name in vain.
When we use God’s name to make a buck, we are misusing the name of God. When we use God’s name to win elections, or get more business, or to impress our friends, to make us look better, we are using God’s name in vain.

8Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9For six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

I knew a pastor who started one of his sermons by saying, “I have a confession to make. I have broken one of the Ten Commandments—and not just once. I have actually broken it on a regular basis.” Well the congregation was expecting some juicy bit of gossip, and perhaps his resignation. They were probably all thinking along the lines of adultery or something like that. Well, he continued and said, “I have broken the fourth Commandment. I have not kept the Sabbath.”
After the service one of his members said, “We don’t expect you to keep THAT one!”

But we need rest. We need to recharge our batteries. And we need to do it for several reasons. First are the obvious health reasons. If don’t take a rest, you will burn out. But also to remind us to keep the first Commandment—no other Gods. Sometimes, when I am thinking about taking time off, this little voice goes off inside my head, and says, “But they can never get along without you.”
But I am not God. If I take a day off, the universe will remain quite unaffected. The country will be fine. The church will not fall apart. It is only when I become a legend in my own mind that I start to think no one can do without me. A time of rest reminds us that the world can function quite well without us, and that should come as a relief.
Now I am not going to go over each commandment. I could probably do a whole sermon on each one, but we don’t have time for that.
The first few commandments are about our relationship with God. The last are about our relationships with each other. Now that makes sense. When my wife and married, we both had children from previous marriages. Our children stood up with us at our wedding, and one of the things that was and is important to us is that we treat each other’s children well. We accept them for who they are, and care for them.
In the same way, God has many children, and the second part of the commandments tell us how to treat God’s other children. Don’t kill them. Don’t cheat on them. Don’t steal from them. Don’t lie about them. And don’t waste your time wanting what they have. Focus instead on what YOU have.
I want to end with one more example about how these are not laws per se, but teachings on how to have a full life with God.
Today’s Gospel lesson seems to have little or nothing to do with the Old Testament reading. And at first I was just going let it. But I started thinking about it.
Why was Jesus angry at the money changers?
Well here is the way the system worked in the Temple. If you brought an animal for sacrifice, it had to be a pure animal, without blemish. Well, imagine you dragged a cow or a goat or a lamb all the way from Mesopotamia to make your sacrifice, only to find when you got to Jerusalem, that your animal had a blemish, and could not be sacrificed at the Temple.
Most people, even those that lived in the neighborhood, didn’t want to risk having their sacrificial animal rejected, so they just bought an animal, guaranteed to be without blemish, from the Temple. Now here is the catch. You cannot use secular money at the Temple. You had to change your secular money into Temple money. That is where the moneychangers come in.
So essentially, the law requires a pure sacrifice, which makes sense. The intent of the law is that you should be giving your best to God, not your worst. You don’t sacrifice the sheep that you were already going to get rid of. It’s not a sacrifice if you are getting rid of something you don’t want. When you give a gift to God, it should be a good gift. That is the intent of the law.
But a few people saw a way to make money off of the law. They used it for their advantage, and that is NOT the intent of the law. Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for people; people were not made for the Sabbath. In the Sabbath Saying, about resting, it says that EVERYONE should rest. That is NOT so we make sure that no one has any fun. The intent of that is that it is not fair for the landowner to take the Sabbath, and then make his family or his servants work that day in his stead. That is NOT honoring the Sabbath. Nor do we honor the Sabbath when we make laws saying people cannot have any fun on the Sabbath.

People were taking advantage of the law. They were fine tuning for their own profit, and using it to gauge other people. Yesterday at the Presbytery meeting, I was talking to someone who remarked that some people use our Book of Order, our Constitution, as a weapon. Robert Penn Warren said that the American South was the only place that used manners as a weapon, and as a southerner I believe he is correct.
God’s word was NEVER meant for us to use to harm others. It was never intended for us to manipulate for our own gain. It is not like the tax code, which can be used to avoid paying taxes by people who have a lot of money. It was meant to guide us in loving relationships.

That is why these are not laws. Laws can be twisted. They were almost made to be gotten around. They can be used to hurt other people. These are more like wedding vows. God promises us, and we respond. We don’t use wedding vows to nitpick and get our spouses to do what we want them to do. We use them to express our love for God.
These are not laws. They are wise sayings that lead us to a deeper, richer, more spiritual life. And we would be wise to heed them, as they were intended to be heeded.

Take a moment and watch the following video.

When I first saw this, I was hesitant to present it because I was sure everyone would see the gorilla. I knew it was coming, so to me it was incredibly obvious. But if you were not looking for it, you probably didn’t see it. We did this at the Monday Night Class, and only two of thirty people noticed the gorilla.

In other words, we tend to see only what we are looking for. And if we are not looking for it, our minds will filter it out. We don’t see what we are not looking for.

Which leads me to ask, what are the things we do not see? How many other things do we miss?

In the Gospel story today, Peter missed something very important. And Jesus says something pretty harsh to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Peter could not see what Jesus was really all about. He had an idea of what Jesus was all about, what Jesus’ agenda should be, and when Jesus himself said different, Peter just could not see it.

Specifically, Peter could not see Jesus suffering and being rejected. It was just not in his line of sight. He believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and that is NOT how a Messiah should be treated. Jesus should not suffer; he should be treated like royalty. The elders, the chief priests, and the scribes should not reject Jesus; they should follow him. They should not kill him; they should bow down to him!

But the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes could not see who Jesus really was, nor could Peter. We are not sure exactly why the others could not really see Jesus, but he tells Peter what is wrong—“… you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Now just before this, two very interesting things happened. First, Jesus heals a blind man. Here was man who could not see—literally—and Jesus heals him, he helps him see. Even more interesting is that immediately before this, just a few verses earlier, Jesus asks Peter who Peter thinks he is, and Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” He gets it, or at least he seems to. He sees!

But then, he loses it. Here I had it. Here I lost it.

He had his mind on human things, not on the things of God.

And to be honest, we are not all that different from Peter. We see what we expect to see. We see what we want to see. We can easily see the human things, but we have a hard time seeing the divine things.

Sometimes it is very hard to see the work of God.

Ask Abraham. Here he is, a 99 year old man, and God tells him he is going to start having kids. I tell, at 57 that would not exactly come as good news to me! You look at Abraham, and at Sarah, and it must be very hard to see what God is up to. Even Abraham did not quite get it right, because after they went a while without conceiving, he went ahead and had a child by Hagar, his maid servant.

You cannot blame him for not seeing the work of God. Ninety-nine is pretty old to be having kids. But the call was important. It would affect Abraham greatly, even if he did not understand it. And it affects us, because the fact is WE are part of God’s work with Abraham. We stem from the promise God made to him ages and ages ago!

How do you see God’s work in the world? How can you tell what God is doing? Peter thought he saw what God was doing, and he did get a large part of it right. But he also got some parts wrong. Really wrong!

That’s the problem we have. We can see some things, but totally miss other things. We tend to focus on what we THINK we will see, and when do that, just like the people missed the gorilla, we miss out on what is really happening around us.

So how do we miss out? How is it that we miss what God is doing?

One way is that we let other things blind us. Martin Luther had to stand up to the Roman Catholic Church in the early 1500s because they were blind to what God was calling the church to be. They were so fixated on maintaining power and wealth that they missed what God was doing.

I think a large portion of the church today is so fixated on politics they are missing out on what God is really doing today. Politics is a seductive business, and parts of the church have been so seduced by the possibility of political power, that they are blind to what God is calling them to do.

In the same way, I think that sometimes we can be so fixated on the CHURCH that we can miss out on what God is doing. I visited an art museum once and what struck me about this museum was that the frames AROUND the paintings were so ornate, that I realized I was paying more attention to them than I was to the paintings they framed. The church is frame around the work of God, but sometimes we get so fixated on the frame that we lose sight of the painting.

Like the people who were watching the people pass the balls that they missed the gorilla, we can miss what God is doing because we are too busy paying attention to other things.

Another way we miss the work of God is that God does something unexpected, and we are not open to that. And so we don’t see it.

I was in the airport once, and a person came up to me and asked me how I was doing. I had no idea who this person was, until they asked how Steven was doing, and I remembered! She was the doctor who delivered Steven! But I was not expecting to see her outside of the hospital, wearing street clothes. Sometimes we don’t see the work of God because we don’t expect to see it.

So what is it that we do see. We get a hint in what Jesus told Peter. “…you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” We are so fixated on ourselves, on our experiences, on our limitations, that we don’t see what God is doing. We end up not seeing what God is doing because we get so caught up in ourselves.

What Jesus says in the Gospel lessons a little harsh; “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” We don’t like the idea of denying ourselves. That sound dangerous, it sounds like it is in not fun. It is not American.

But Jesus is right. When we focus on ourselves, we tend to end up losing our perspective, and losing the important things in life.

I once was a part of a bowling league. Now I am a fair bowler, and by that I mean that I bowl either strikes or gutter balls. I just don’t have a lot of middle ground, and I end up throwing more gutter balls than strikes.

But when I was asked to join this league, I got kind of excited because I thought I could overcome my bad tendencies, and actually contribute something to the team. Oh, how wrong I was! I was so focused on looking good in front of the team and impressing that other teams, that I could not bowl worth beans. And I was not the worst person on the team!

By the end of the season we were hopelessly in the cellar. If there was a place AFTER last place, that is where we deserved to be. So for the last game, I figured I would just bowl. I didn’t care how I looked, because I knew I looked really bad. I didn’t care about winning, because even if we won, it would not change our last place standing. I didn’t care about anything but just getting the ball down the alley. So I put on my headphones, listened to music, and just bowled for the fun of it.

I ended up bowling the best game of my life–ever. I had three turkeys! I was not focusing on myself and how I looked; I was focusing on the music and on the ball. I lost myself in the game and had one of the best, and most enjoyable games in my life.

The reality is that when we get too focused on ourselves, we tend to lose sight of the things that are really valuable—if we focus too much on ourselves, we miss the world around us. If I am in a relationship and I am focusing too much on what I am getting out of it, and not on the other person, neither of us will be happy. If I am a part of a church and I am too focused on my needs and what I am getting out of it, I will not be happy in that church.

In a relationship, we focus on the other person. In church we focus on God, and the people around us. As a church, if we focus too much on ourselves, we will wither and die, but if we focus on the world around us, the community around us, the people who go here, the and if we focus on God, we can never die.

If we focus on ourselves, we will only see human things, and not things divine. We will only see our own work, and will be limited by our own perspective. But if can take the focus off of ourselves, we can start to see what God is doing, both in our lives and in the world.

And God is doing some amazing things! In God’s eyes, we all have intrinsic value. In God’s eyes, we are not judged by our income, our jobs, how good we look to the world around, or how much success we have accumulated in human terms. In God’s eyes we are called to love–to love God and to love others. In God’s eyes the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. In God’s eyes, human trappings of success don’t count.

What are you seeing? Are you missing the gorilla of Gods’ work in the world? Or are you participating in it?