Monday, February 23, 2015

The Time Is Fulfilled (Sermon)


“The Time Is Fulfilled”
Mark 1:9-15
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
2/22/15
        
“The time is fulfilled…the Kingdom of God has come near.”
         We hear those words through ears conditioned by 2000 years of Christian tradition and metaphor. First century Jews hear those words through theologically-conditioned ears, as well. However, foundering beneath the weight of Roman rule, Jews of that era crave and even expect something quite literal. That makes their culture a kind of petri dish for would-be messiahs. Men claiming to be God’s Anointed pop up everywhere, and one after another fade into oblivion through either irrelevance or execution. John the Baptist himself has to deflect the hopeful projections of messiah hunters.
Don’t look at me like that, he says. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.”
Of all unlikely people, a carpenter from Nazareth shows up and begins to claim Jesse’s lineage. He begins to live the life of David’s heir. People come to recognize this when their tangible experiences of Jesus find foothold in their spiritual memory:
         “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,” declares the prophet Isaiah. “The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord…Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist…The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together.” (Selected verses from Isaiah 11:1-6)
         From his identification of John as the voice crying out in the wilderness, to the coming of the Spirit at Jesus’ baptism, down to the wild beasts peaceably surrounding Jesus after his forty days of temptation, Mark helps to shape the remembrance of Jesus as Isaiah’s suffering servant, the servant who says, The time is fulfilled.
         Isn’t it interesting? It takes Jesus years to mature into and to earn lasting credibility as God’s offered messiah of reconciling Love rather than the world’s desired messiah of military might. And it takes Mark only fifteen verses to make all these connections and to turn Jesus loose on the creation. For Mark there is no reflective “What Child Is This,” no soppy “Away in a Manger,” not even any rousing “Joy to the World.” Refusing to sugar coat his proclamation with candy canes and eggnog, Mark begins his telling of the Good News not with the happy celebrations of Christmas, but with the urgent belt-tightening and the rigorous self-examination of Lent.
         The Lenten idea of time being “fulfilled,” captures a lot of attention. Unfortunately, many of the loudest voices talking about the fulfillment of time are really obsessed with the end of time. Doomsdayers pour their energy into wailing at all that they consider wrong with the world. Now, I do not argue that in many, terrifying ways the kingdoms of hell seem to have the upper hand on the kingdom of heaven. And the truly disturbing question is: When has this not be the case?
In first century Palestine, Roman rule, and perhaps more accurately, local rule under Roman control, depends on a fear and brutality equal to that of ISIS, and Boko Haram, and even of those “Christians” who sympathize with a certain, unaffiliated Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas. Institutional violence and parasitic greed continue to be demoralizing realities in the world. Yet, as pointless and absurd as it may sound, God continues to call people of faith to proclaim and to live reconciling Love in the midst these horrors. And we enter that life of Love through the Lenten discipline of repentance.
The very word repentance conjures up a variety of images. It evokes all manner of reactions. For many it means turning from sins, that is, from all those “bad things” sinners do, things that offend the sensibilities of “good” people. But let’s face it. That’s low-hanging fruit, isn’t it? Who among us isn’t offended by something done by someone? We even offend ourselves, don’t we?
While it will have its effect on particular choices we make, repentance is best understood as a turn from the overall condition that makes us feel not only defeated by, but beholden to the seductive but destructive powers lying behind every Caesar and Pharaoh, every Herod and Jezebel. To live inside the foolish notion that come what may, Love will prevail in this world requires more than intellectual assent. It requires a conscious, deliberate, and daring turn away from violence, greed, and fear and toward gratitude, hospitality, and justice.
Taking up our cross and following Jesus into this new life may make us feel like something other than good Americans or good Presbyterians. But neither nationality, nor denomination, nor even goodness is the point.
         The point of Jesus’ call to repentance is that now, in this fullness of time when anxiety and despair overflow, now is the time to choose to live according to the humbling and redeeming demands of Agape Love. The imperative of repentance is indescribably bigger and more urgent than any one person’s need to be individually “good” or “moral” so that when they die they can go to heaven. Caesar, Pharaoh, Herod, and Jezebel have no problem with that kind of self-serving, legalistic religion because it creates malleable subjects who are easy to influence with rewards and threats. What the kingdoms of hell don’t want is people who intentionally, consistently, and fearlessly acknowledge the kingdom of heaven as a present reality, because they will find it, and they will reveal it, celebrate it, and steward it into ever-greater conspicuousness for the well being of the entire creation.
         Now, accepting all of that is the easy part. The hard part makes repentance a way of life.
“You are my Son/Daughter, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Do you really hear God say that to you? Do you really embrace the timely good news of God’s radical, unconditional Love for you? The hard part is accepting these words as words spoken directly to us – to you and me. This is the hard part because we will know that we have accepted our own belovedness of God only when we are able to celebrate the God-beloved-holiness of every other human being, even and perhaps especially the belovedness of those human beings whom we fear, envy, or just plain don’t care about.
The hard thing about Agape Love is that only when it we humbly share it do we fully receive it.
Do you still need to enact some sort of Lenten discipline? For the next forty days, or forty weeks, or forty months, or forty years, try greeting everyone you meet – everyone – with what my dad calls “ThankGodfulness.” Thank God for each person, and ask yourself, what is the most Lovingly appropriate response to him, or to her, or to them in the fullness of that particular moment. To live our moments in gratitude and Love for one another and for the creation is to live in gratitude and Love for God. It is to live in the kingdom of God, which, thanks to Easter, is no longer simply “near,” but present and real.
         Friends, we cannot wait to live as God’s beloved children.
The time is fulfilled. The time is now.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Listen to Him! (Sermon)


“Listen to Him!”
Mark 9:2-9
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
2/15/15

         Jesus takes three disciples, “up a high mountain.” In the Bible, that means Hang on! Unforgettable things happen on mountains –epiphanies happen, overwhelming encounters with God. Think of Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah. Think of Moses on Mt. Sinai, and Elijah on Mt. Carmel. If it helps, think of Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” tied to a stake on a rocky mountain top. In the gospel according to Spielberg, when the ark of the covenant is opened by those who don't respect it, God shows up!
Actually, as I recall, God shows up and melts their faces off, so I take that back. I hope that doesn't help at all.
         On that mountain, Jesus and the three disciples stand “apart by themselves.” Epiphanies happen in solitude, as well. Mark deliberately puts us up on that mountain with Peter, James and John who, if not entirely alone, are still separated from the wider circle of witnesses whose extra eyes would be immeasurably helpful in verifying the claim of something like Transfiguration – something not only mind-bending, but entirely subjective. Transfiguring moments are like that, though. As subjective events, their substance has less to do with any outward appearances we may try to describe than with the spiritual readiness created by our inward strengths, and vulnerabilities, and hungers. That readiness is like an ember in our souls. And upon seeing it, God blows gently on it.
         Jesus seems to recognize readiness in Peter, James and John, but the moment still leaves them in speechless awe. According to Mark, when the disciples reach the top of the mountain with Jesus, they see him glowing as with his own uncreated light. Moses and Elijah, two old hands at mountain top epiphanies, stand with him.
         “Then,” says Mark, “a cloud overshadowed them…”
         Do you hear the different stories rattling around in here? Where else do we come across “overshadowed” as a description of transfiguring epiphany?
         “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” says Gabriel, “and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy.”
         And from even more ancient words: “While a wind from God swept over the face of the waters . . . God said, 'Let there be light.'”
When Transfiguration happens, the creation shifts. A new day dawns, and this new day is more than the day that follows yesterday. Transfiguration gathers the light of past, present, and future and sheds its brilliance on that completely new reality we call the kingdom of God.
         Transfiguration rises above any one moment or place. It is yet another synonym for God's ongoing work of creation, redemption, and renewal. Like the first day of creation, like the announcement of the coming of the Christ, and Easter morning itself, Transfiguration speaks of God’s overshadowing creativity and innovation. And perhaps more often than not, Transfiguration “moments” are not moments at all. They are more like the Exodus, a forty-year ordeal. Such an event becomes a “moment” only when remembered within community, and even in the remembering one is never certain when the old ways ended and the new ways began.
         However transfiguring experiences happen, thanks to our all-too-human blinders and blunders, we often overlook them. Occasionally we even ignore God’s new thing, choosing instead the comfortable familiarity of old relationships and arrangements. And there are, I suppose, times we do that simply to rest. We return to old ways and means because trying to live in the renewing order of God while also living in a broken world is a tall order. The relentless tension between the already and the not yet of the kingdom, the constant overlay of holy and profane, and the unyielding paradox of being both children of Abraham and children of God – these things can weary us to the point of blindness and deafness.
         Squinting into the brilliant vision before him, Peter, impulsive as ever, says, ‘Rabbi, can we just stay here? Me and the boys, we’ll build a shelter for each of you, and we'll just stay on this mountain until, well, forever!’
         While Jesus heaves a Bless your heart sigh toward Peter, from the overshadowing cloud a voice speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
         Listen to him. These words come crashing down onto the disciples – especially Peter. Remember, six days earlier, Peter boldly confesses Jesus as the Christ. When Jesus rewards Peter’s faith with the prediction of Jesus’ own death, Peter turns and with a kind of childish vengeance scolds God’s Messiah for blasphemy. Peter now offers the utterly self-serving suggestion that, instead of doing anything at all for the well-being of creation, the few of them who stand on that mountain should just stay there and keep the presence of God to themselves.
         Listen to him!” says the voice.
         Something within us embraces the holy Christ-ness of Jesus. That’s why we are here. Still, like Peter, when we experience the presence of God, something else within us wants to crawl up inside it and just stay there. And God always sends us back into the midst of the tension and the suffering so that we might share God’s transfiguring kingdom of grace.
         This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. The standard Lenten greeting has become: “What did you give up for Lent?” But the discipline of Lent is to “Listen to him,” to put ourselves on mountains and in places of solitude where we might hear and see things that draw us closer to and deepen our awareness of and our love for God’s presence. It seems to me, then, that giving up something as indulgent as chocolate or ice cream and calling it a Lenten sacrifice is not only to miss the point, it is to avoid the point.
         If I decide that not eating chocolate or ice cream really prepares me for Easter, I reinforce a sense of entitlement, a sense that luxury and excess are not only basic human rights, they are God’s manifest destiny for humankind. Economic wealth becomes my spiritual reality. At that point Jesus turns to me and says, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (Mark 8:33b)
         If we want to observe Lent by giving something up, first listen to the Christ. What is Jesus really asking us to give up? Isn’t he daring us to give up fearfulness, to give up jealousy, violence, envy, and greed? Whatever it is that allows us or even compels us to live over against one another rather than with and for one another – that is what Jesus calls us to abandon, because such things disfigure us rather than transfigure us.
         Jesus calls us to start listening for, seeing, and sharing kingdom things, things of wonder and promise, things of reconciliation and peace.
         So, Listen to him! Then hang on.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Snake Meat (Sermon)


“Snake Meat”
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
2/1/15

         I am beginning to think that if you were to ask Paul for directions from Jonesborough to Kingsport, he would send you through Knoxville.  His advice to his readers often ends up camouflaged so deep inside meandering thickets of theological jargon that one may wonder if Paul’s gift is rare brilliance or crafty ignorance. In Romans 7 we find one of the most memorable examples of the apostle’s circuitous rambling.
“I do not understand my own actions,” he wails. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want…”
You get the picture. It is exhausting, and Paul finally throws his hands in the air and cries, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
         What exactly is Paul talking about? And what is he talking about in 1Corinthians 8? Omnivore versus herbivore? Strong versus weak believers? Idols versus the God revealed in Christ?
         Now, in both of these passages, Paul does state the issue. He names it at the very beginning, but when he starts to explore the matter, it’s like someone releases a herd of rabbits, and Paul tries to chase every one of them. In Romans 7, he struggles with his own motives and means. I don’t understand myself, he says. The he goes around and around rebuking himself. The reader wants to look away, embarrassed for this guy who shares so much more than polite company wants to hear. But Paul is also modeling heartfelt and pastoral vulnerability.
I’m just like the rest of you, he says. And I know it isn’t easy being human, much less a Christian human. Thanks be to God that we discover and live our humanity not through perfection, but through our relationship with the Christ who lives within us and within the creation around us.
1Corinthians 8 can be summed up in the seven concluding words of verse 1: “Knowledge puffs up; but love builds up.” Everything else, all of Paul’s talk of meat and idols, becomes demonstration. In fact, his argument mirrors the relationship between the first commandment and the rest of the Law. “I am Lord your God,” says Yahweh. “You shall have no other gods before me.” Everything after that, the next nine commandments and all of the 600+ dos and don’ts and die-if-you-try-its are Israel’s attempt to illustrate Yahweh’s claim of radical singularity in, with, and for the creation.
Problems arise, of course. Some of those laws seem to be driven more by a need to control than by the wonder of contemplating God’s presence and grace. That is the very struggle between knowledge and Love that Paul talks about.
It is a natural thing to want to know all we can about something, be it music, or carpentry, or economics, or algebra, or God. And to know a subject well, to be able to speak about it with intelligence can be exciting and rewarding. But when knowledge becomes a source of pride, when we think that we have got something so right that we make ourselves the standard by which the basic value of others may be determined, we have created an idol. That is as true for knowledge of God as it is for knowledge of rocket science.
The God to whom we are reunited in Jesus Christ is no idol, says Paul. And on that, we in this room can agree – at least on our good days. Still, people of all faith traditions often worship our images of God rather than God, because the line between the two can be so thin. This is where Paul’s rambling becomes gospel. When motivated by genuine and holy Love, we build one another up; we do not puff ourselves up. Later, in 1Corinthians, Paul will remind us that we cannot Love one another, and we cannot build up the body of Christ while being “envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.” We cannot love God through irritability, resentfulness, and insisting on our own way. “Love,” says Paul, “is patient [and] kind…It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1Corinthians 13)
You and I will not agree on everything. So if, in fear, I make our worship and service of God dependent on your conformity to my way of thinking, I practice a dangerous idolatry. It’s like handling snakes. And in an absurdly transparent attempt both to control you and to convince myself, I will try to force feed you idol meat. Snake meat.
“Come on,” I’ll say. “It tastes like chicken. Eat it!”
All of us are prone to stopping part way into the journey of faith, and to making idols of what we know, or what we think we know about our images of God. The full journey takes us into the kingdom of God called Love. And it is a long, demanding journey, but we can know we are on the journey by the fact that it keeps going. Love never ceases to ask more of us, but it never ceases to empower us to do more, either.
In the Presbyterian Church we baptize only once. We view the sacrament of Baptism as a vivid reminder of God’s gracious initiative. Our place in the body of Christ comes not by some decision or merit of our own, but by the indestructible Love of God. Because of God’s timeless Love, Baptism is once-and-for-all.
We do, however, return to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper time after time. We return to be fed for and restored to the journey of Love. There is no snake meat on this table. And it is healthy that we observe this sacrament by both distribution and intinction. Approaching the sacrament in different ways helps us to avoid idolatry of style, and to embrace, instead, the God proclaimed and revealed at this table.
So come, all of you. And may you welcome others as you are welcomed by Jesus, the Christ, the incarnation of up-building Love around whom we gather.