The Light of Righteousness and Justice (Christmas Eve Sermon)

 “The Light of Righteousness and Justice”

Isaiah 9:2-7

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

Christmas Eve - 2023

 

²The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.
³ You have multiplied exultation;
    you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
    as with joy at the harvest,
    as people exult when dividing plunder.
⁴ For the yoke of their burden
    and the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.
⁵ For all the boots of the tramping warriors
    and all the garments rolled in blood
    shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
⁶ For a child has been born for us,
    a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
    and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Great will be his authority,
    and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
    He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time onward and forevermore. (NRSV)

 

         Tibetan Buddhists like to say that a Dalai Lama is not chosen. He’s discovered. The elders watch, engage, and teach many boys. And when that one, extraordinary youngster begins to shine, begins to demonstrate the raw traits of a spiritual leader, he begins the long process of training and preparation.

         For Tibetans, this child has been born for them. He’s been given to them. And while he is not yet spiritually mature, not yet a fulfillment, he has begun the work of adopting and being adopted by his new name, Dalai Lama, which means “Ocean of Compassion,” or “Ocean of Wisdom.”¹

         The ancient Hebrews, fumbling through the darkness of defeat and exile, are being told that a new light is shining on them. A child has been born for them, a son given to them. He will redeem and renew them. He will live into and will be known by new names: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

         It seems that the great spiritual traditions of the world often have more in common than they do in the way of differences. And one of those commonalities has to do with the metaphor of childhood as a time of immediate, yet not-quite-fulfilled presence. Even the most gifted children, require attention, love, and patience. And we are called to steward these new lights, who represent God’s promise—not because God is dependent on us for whatever success may look like, but because in ways that are as mystical and mysterious as glorias from the heavens, and earthy as childbirth in a stable, we share in God’s ongoing work in and for the Creation.

         Another common metaphor is light. And you and I, we’re kind of like candles. We don’t create fire or light, and we don’t last forever, but for a time, we do burn. We shine with a light that is given to us. That light is itself The Gift, the gift of God’s Shalom, which is God’s Peace, Wholeness, and Holiness. God’s great light in the world is the brightness of all our individual wicks burning, side-by-side with the virtues of justice and righteousness—that is of compassion and joy.

When burning with justice and righteousness, we work for peace and understanding between peoples, nations, and religions.

When burning with justice and righteousness, we advocate for fellow human beings who are suffering; and we leave to God all judgments regarding a given person’s worthiness.

When burning with justice and righteousness, we care for the earth, which is not a resource to be exploited, but a magnificent, personal re-presentation of the Creator, something given to us to steward gratefully in the present moment and with vision for the future. Indeed, in ancient Celtic Christianity, the Creation is considered the First Incarnation of God.

When burning with justice and righteousness, we become midwives in the Creation’s groaning and labor pains as it moves toward adoption and redemption.

No matter whom we follow, everything we do, every decision we make declares whom we love and whom we trust. When burning with the selfishness of the world’s Herods and Caesars, we’re not candles but the blazing funeral pyre of humankind’s brokenness. Being fed by Isaiah’s tramping boots and blood-soaked garments, that fire will, one day, burn out. For good.

When burning with “the zeal of the Lord of hosts,” however, our little flickers declare that we belong to God. So, our celebration of Christmas includes the re-discovery of our own selves as expressions of the incarnate Christ, whose coming we celebrate.

And this Jesus, the Christ, born of Mary, frees us from serving the Herods and Caesars of the world. He frees us from the absolutes that they seek to impose through invoking fear and igniting violence.

In Christ, we live over against the Herods and Caesars. So, while their power can burn with terrifying heat and fury, and while, at times, those things may even consume some part of us, Christ’s gracious authority burns and grows continually with the compassion, the wisdom, and the grace we call love. And Love heals. Love renews. Or, as Rob Bell says, “Love Wins.”

In his song “Go Light Your World,” Chris Rice sings:

 

There is a candle in every soul

Some brightly burning, some dark and cold.

There is a Spirit who brings a fire,

Ignites a candle and makes his home.

So carry your candle; run to the darkness.

Seek out the helpless, confused and torn.

Hold out your candle for all to see it;

Take your candle, and go light your world.

 

         May your Christmas be more than merry. May it be transforming—for yourself and for others.

May your life be a constant discovery of the living Christ within you and within those around you.

And may you light the world with his justice, righteousness, compassion, and joy

 

¹http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/04/how-the-dalai-lama-is-chosen/

An Apocalypse of Grace (Sermon)

 "An Apocalypse of Grace”

Psalm 25:1-10 and Luke 21:25-36

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

12/3/23

 

¹ To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
² O my God, in you I trust;
    do not let me be put to shame;
    do not let my enemies exult over me.
³ Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
    let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

⁴ Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
    teach me your paths.
⁵ Lead me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all day long.

⁶ Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,
    for they have been from of old.
⁷ Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
    according to your steadfast love remember me,
    for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

⁸ Good and upright is the Lord;
    therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
⁹ He leads the humble in what is right
    and teaches the humble his way.
¹⁰ All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
    for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. (NRSV)

 

Advent begins today. And while we have decked this hall with signs of the season, let’s remind ourselves that Advent is not Christmas. I’m not trying to be a Scrooge. It’s just that to celebrate something like the Incarnation of the eternal God in the person of a first-century, blue-collar rabbi takes some preparation.

Neither Advent nor Christmas were celebrations for the early church. And maybe that’s because they lacked a season of intentional preparation. And maybe that helps explain why, of the four canonical gospels, three show no real interest in Jesus’ nativity.

Matthew does tell us about Joseph’s dream, but afterward jumps straight to the visit of the Magi, who would have visited not an infant in a stable but a toddler in a carpenter’s home. Mark opens his story with an adult John the Baptist calling people to respond to an adult Jesus who’s already at work. John starts out with abstract theological reflection: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…” Then, like Mark, John moves straight to an adult John the Baptist.

Only Luke records a nativity story, and he prepares us very carefully. Before any “good news of great joy,” Luke forecasts the birth of John the Baptist by telling the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. Then comes the story of Mary’s Annunciation. When Mary visits Elizabeth, and hears her prophecy, Mary sings her own prophetic song of praise.

When Elizabeth’s child is born, a doubt-muted Zechariah names him John. Then, when his voice is restored, Zechariah utters his own prophecy about God sending a “mighty savior [to] guide our feet into the way of peace.” Zechariah’s and Elizabeth’s son will be an Advent prophet. He will help prepare the way for thelong-expected Jesus.

At this moment in Luke, though, John is an infant, and Jesus is not yet born. There are years of waiting and struggle before these remarkable prophecies begin to take shape and to stir people’s imaginations and their hope.

That is the feeling we’re after in Advent. During this indispensable season, we stop and mull over all the prophecies. We prepare ourselves to receive and declare the news that this flesh is God’s chosen medium for God’s self-revelation. In the organ of Creation—in which we live and of which we’re a part—God incarnates God’s own self in a particular human being, and in a particular place, time, and socio-political environment. The four weeks of Advent call us to examine our own hearts and minds, our own spiritual communities, and our interactions with our own earthly circumstances. That’s why we begin Advent with texts like this one:

²⁵“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. ²⁶People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁷Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. ²⁸Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

²⁹Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; ³⁰as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. ³¹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ³²Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. ³³Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

³⁴“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, ³⁵like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”(NRSV)

 

         Let’s back up and look at this passage in the context of Luke’s wider story, which doesn’t end with the Ascension, but continues all the way through the book of Acts. Like Mary’s Magnificat and Zechariah’s prophecy preceding the births of their children, Jesus’ entire prophetic life precedes his passion, resurrection, and return in the person of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Always engaging political, social, and economic realities as well as spiritual realities, Jesus’ words can make us uneasy.¹ He speaks of political distress and confusion. He speaks of chaos in nature. And by calling such things signs of the coming of the Son of Man, Luke presents Jesus as an apocalyptic figure—as someone speaking about the end times. And there are two primary voices at work in this passage: Jesus, the prophetic Word of God, and Luke, the first century narrative theologian.

As the first voice, Jesus—the Son of Man—points toward God’s redemption of the Creation, that is, toward God’s gracious gathering up of all things into God’s Self. And yes, the apocalyptic tradition in Judaism often describes a dramatic, even disruptive grace.

A word of caution, though: Every human attempt to define or identify some culminating, apocalyptic event has proven wrong. And we needn’t think of only within the Judeo-Christian tradition. The ancient Mayan calendar predicted that the world would end on December 21, 2012. Sometimes human effort has proven just plain silly, like Harold Camping and his multiple, failed doomsday predictions based on some absurd numerology. And Camping himself has now been dead for ten years.²

Occasionally, some have tried, with horrifying and deadly futility, to force the issue. Consider the Crusades in Medieval times. Or think of Christian Zionists who, right now, are salivating at the war between Israel and Palestine because they believe that such horrific and ungodly violence is a divinely-ordained prerequisite for Jesus’ physical return. Does that sound Christ-like to you?

While Advent it not an exercise in doomsday preparation, our faith tradition takes seriously the socio-political realities of human existence. That brings us to the second voice.

Luke wrote his gospel in the early-to-mid 80’sCE—that means ten to fifteen years after the fall of Jerusalem in 70CE. The distress, confusion, and chaos of the Jewish rebellion and Rome’s over-powering response lingered like the smell of smoke around the ruins of a burned-down home. Having a long history of enduring conquest and occupation, Luke’s Jewish readers would still feel that fresh wound and remember ancient ones. They would wrestle with God’s goodness and providence as they continued to wait for good news and deliverance.

Maybe Luke was trying to say that he expected some imminent and apocalyptic act. As followers of Jesus, we trust and proclaim that Jesus is that act. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, born to a Jewish carpenter and his fiancé, in the town of Bethlehem, in the midst of a Roman census, God’s deliverance has come. Embracing news like that means embracing a paradox. We prepare for the fulfillment of God’s promised redemption by intentionally living our lives in the realm of Incarnate love—here and now.

Because Christmas proclaims the gift of God’s eternal presence in, with, and for the Creation, Advent, instead of being a time of busyness and acquisition, is best observed as a time of contemplation and release. It’s a time to create space to receive anew God’s ongoing apocalypse of grace.

The more we clutter our lives, or to use Jesus’ words, the more “weighed down [and trapped] with…the worries of this life” we become, the less “alert [and prayerful]” we will be. And the less able we are to recognize and welcome what God offers in Jesus.

Christmas may be the headliner, but Advent is the way of life. And without it, this time of year is, even for Christians, nothing more than “The Holidays.”

As you come to Christ’s table this morning, may you come with open hearts and unclenched fists so that you may truly receive the signs of grace. And instead of helping you to escape creation’s suffering and struggles, may this sacrament send you out to live as sprouting fig leaves, as incarnate signs of God’s redeeming love at work in a grieving, anguished, and yet beautiful, beloved, and holy Creation.

 

¹Like so much of scripture, especially prophetic and apocalyptic texts, Jesus’ words often get misused. Many people find grace a bit fluffy and fragile, and turn to fear (judgement, shame, etc.) as means of proclamation. The gospel, then, gets lost in human efforts to make grace a merited and measurable commodity rather than that the gift it is, and which it must be to be grace.

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Camping

Making Room (Advent Newsletter)

 I grew up privileged. It wasn’t silver-spoon-stuck-to-the-tongue kind of privilege. Having been raised by parents who had survived the Great Depression, my parents diligently avoided ostentation. Dad always bought Plymouths, for heaven’s sake. He was a physician, and he was never really “off duty.” He could have bought nicer (and more dependable) cars, but he didn’t. When I was in high school, he splurged and bought, of all things, a light blue VW Rabbit—just for himself. The only time I saw Dr. Dad work on a car or do something less than honest was when he crawled under that Rabbit and performed a catalytic converterectomy.

Without the catalytic converter, the Rabbit could burn regular gas instead of unleaded.

Because it was cheaper.

I learned to drive a straight-shift in that non-street-legal VW Rabbit.

         Car talk aside, my three siblings and I never ever lacked for food, clothing, shelter, health care. We always had everything we needed as well as a good bit of stuff we didn’t. Our enough-and-then-some made us privileged in a world in which far too many people struggle simply to meet their basic human needs—which are, themselves, chief among basic human rights.

For some reason, Christmas has become about satisfying desires for extraneous, material stuff. That means it has become as much (more?) about greed as it is about grace. Even when we buy gifts for things like Angel Tree or donate to Salvation Army, we often say that we’re trying to help others “have a Christmas.” As a child of privilege, and as a dad who did his best to “give his children a Christmas,” I get that. I do. As a pastor who preaches Jesus week after week, I have, by God’s incarnate grace, lost a lot of that, too.

         Every year, I still buy a few things for my family at Christmas, but we no longer have presents piled under the tree like sacks of rice and beans in a doomsday prepper’s basement. Having said that, our celebration of the nativity of the Christ does involve preparation. In paradoxical contrast to the commercial carnival of Christmas, the spiritual practice of Advent is a season of letting go. It’s a season during which we make space in our harried lives for quiet mystery and subtle miracle. To make that kind of room, we need less feasting and more fasting—which was the principal Advent practice as the season evolved during the late fourth and early fifth centuries.

          Advent invites us into a subversive, counter-cultural observance. During these four weeks, we say Yes to surrender, to emptiness, to what Jesus calls “poverty of spirit.” Letting go is how we prepare ourselves to receive the immeasurable gift of God’s eternal Yes to us in Christ. In Jesus, God says to all Creation, I created you. I love you. I am with you. And I send you out, vulnerable as children, to discover the Christ within you and to embody love in the world.

         Now, another Yes: Yes, we all need certain material things. We need food, water, clothing, and shelter. We all need health care. We need human conversation and touch. We need sleep and exercise. We need personal, physical interaction with the natural world. We need exposure to and appreciation for music and art.

It just seems to me that to follow and love the One whose birth we celebrate, we also need to surrender our learned attachments to whatever makes us feel entitled, defensive, and suspicious of others.

And since it requires less getting and more giving to learn to surrender, could it be that we need to focus more intentionally on Advent so that Christmas truly becomes the gift we proclaim it to be?

 

                                    Peace,

                                             Pastor Allen

Sheep, Goats, and Grace (Sermon)

  “Sheep, Goats, and Grace”

Matthew 25:31-46 and Psalm 95:1-7a

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/26/23

 

Come, let’s sing out loud to the Lord!
    Let’s raise a joyful shout to the rock of our salvation!
² Let’s come before him with thanks!
    Let’s shout songs of joy to him!
³ The Lord is a great God,
    the great king over all other gods.
⁴ The earth’s depths are in his hands;
    the mountain heights belong to him;
⁵     the sea, which he made, is his
        along with the dry ground,
        which his own hands formed.

⁶ Come, let’s worship and bow down!
    Let’s kneel before the Lord, our maker!
⁷ He is our God,
    and we are the people of his pasture,
    the sheep in his hands.  (CEB)

 

³¹ “Now when the Human One comes in his majesty and all his angels are with him, he will sit on his majestic throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered in front of him. He will separate them from each other, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right side. But the goats he will put on his left.

³⁴ “Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who will receive good things from my Father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world began. ³⁵ I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. ³⁶ I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.’

³⁷ “Then those who are righteous will reply to him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? ³⁸ When did we see you as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and give you clothes to wear? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

⁴⁰ “Then the king will reply to them, ‘I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Get away from me, you who will receive terrible things. Go into the unending fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² I was hungry and you didn’t give me food to eat. I was thirsty and you didn’t give me anything to drink. ⁴³ I was a stranger and you didn’t welcome me. I was naked and you didn’t give me clothes to wear. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’

⁴⁴ “Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and didn’t do anything to help you?’ ⁴⁵ Then he will answer, ‘I assure you that when you haven’t done it for one of the least of these, you haven’t done it for me.’⁴⁶ And they will go away into eternal punishment. But the righteous ones will go into eternal life.” (CEB)

 

         Every time I face this passage, I reflect on those times when I have come face-to-face with God in the face of someone in need. Like Jacob at the Jabbok, I wrestle with feelings of both concern and inconvenience. It takes a hard heart to look hunger in the face and not feel some compassion. Then there’s the guilt of relief when ten bucks of fast food and a God bless you so easily buys my way out of truly seeing the human being in need. The whole experience leaves me feeling, again like Jacob, out-of-joint.

         It can also be frustrating trying to decide whether an expressed need is real or just a front for some sort of addiction. Feeling used even once can jade us and make us treat all requests as suspect. And when that happens, the truly insidious thing happens: Trying decide who deserves help, we set ourselves in a position to make judgments that none of us are equipped, much less called, to make. Our judgments often fail the test of true grace.

If there’s no other hopeful word to hear in these dislocating verses from Matthew 25, there is this one hopeful word: The Father’s judgment will be carried out by none other than the Son; and his love-drenched authority to welcome, to heal, and to redeem knows no bounds.

         Today, on Reign of Christ Sunday, we celebrate our faith claim that God’s realm is revealed and embodied in a first-century rabbi from Nazareth. And this rabbi not only teaches that God’s realm is manifest in the simplest, most earthy expressions of love and compassion, he lives what he teaches. Even when speaking sharply to those who oppose him, his words well up from his eternal love for them.

         In the end, you see, as far as this judge is concerned, everyone is a sheep. Some just don’t act like it because they just don’t know it.

         The story we’re looking at today is Jesus’ final teaching in the first gospel, and Matthew sets up an interesting juxtaposition. Jesus’ breakout sermon in Matthew 5-7 occurs on a mountain before a big crowd of people. The Sermon on the Mount begins with the Beatitudes, the proclamation of blessedness on specific people. And here, at the end of his ministry, Jesus speaks only to his disciples, telling them to go and be a blessing. Tend to the hungry, the thirsty, the lonely, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned.

         Reflecting on this passage, Charles Cousar says that the “judgments declared by the Son of Man and the categories describing the needy…carry immense and even threatening power.”¹ He reminds us that in the first century, each of the groups of people Jesus mentions is considered unclean.

         “Sickness,” says Cousar, “carries the notion of sin and contagion, and nakedness implies shame and powerlessness.” Prisoners represent those whom society has locked out of sight and out of mind. And, while hospitality to the stranger was a crucial part of everyday life, strangers still represent those who lie at society’s outermost fringes.

         “To be deeply involved with such people,” says Cousar, “means to be…guilty by association. This teaching,” he says, “demands something more profound than” being nice. To live under the Reign of Christ means mixing it up with the very people that goats turn away from in judgmental fear or disgust. To live under the Reign of Christ means to reach out to those who suffer, for whatever reason, and to love them as God loves them.

That means that goats are not people out there who don’t do right. Goats are those within the body who know better and still withhold the transforming power of God’s joy and God’s hope from people in need. The distinction between sheep and goats is hard to assess because the only person whose relative sheep-ness or goat-ness any of us have the right to judge is our own self. Besides, within each of us is an unblemished sheep and an old cranky, spotted goat.

          Tony Campolo is a writer, teacher, preacher, and out-spoken advocate for people who languish on the fringes of society. I’m going to let him finish this sermon with a personal story that illustrates one facet of the sheep-and-goat dynamic.²

         Walking down a street in his hometown of Philadelphia, PA, Campolo met a street person. The man’s clothes were ragged and covered with soot. Neither his clothes nor his body had been recently washed, so his bouquet was arresting. His thick beard was strung with bits of old food like ornaments on a Christmas tree. The man, whom many people today would call a bum, approached Campolo and held out a cup of McDonald's coffee saying, “Hey mister, want some of my coffee?”

         Initially seized by his inner goat, Campolo politely declined and walked on. Then his inner sheep gave his inner goat a powerful headbutt. So, he stopped and said, “You know, I think I’d like some coffee.” Campolo took a deep breath, then he took a sip, and gave the cup back to the man saying, “You're being pretty generous today.”

          “Well,” the man said, “the coffee was especially good today, and I think that when God gives you something good, you ought to share it.”

         Stunned, Campolo said, “Can I give you anything?” I thought that he would hit me for five dollars.

         At first, the man said “No,” then he said, “Yeah…You can give me a hug.”

         “As I looked at him,” said Campolo, “I was hoping for the five dollars!” The two men embraced right there in the street—Tony Campolo in his coat and tie, and the street person in his filthy rags.

“I had the strange awareness,” said Campolo, “that I wasn’t hugging a [dirty street person], I was hugging Jesus. I found Jesus in that suffering man.

         “Whenever you meet a suffering person,” he says, “you will find that Jesus is there waiting to be loved in that individual. That’s why Jesus said, ‘when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’

“You cannot embrace somebody…who is in desperate straits,” says Campolo, “without having that eerie and wonderful awareness that Jesus is coming back at you right through that person.”

         Are we sheep, or are we goats? Well, we’re both, aren’t we? When we withhold compassion, we are goats. And there is that much more darkness, that much more weeping and gnashing of teeth, within us as well as around us.

         And whenever, and for whatever reason, we show compassion to another human being, we are sheep crowning the Universal Christ as Lord. And then and there, some new brightness, some new wholeness, joy, and hope of God’s realm breaks through into our lives, and into the world.

 

¹All references to Charles Cousar come from: Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A, Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, p. 575-577.

²I don’t recall where I got this story, but all credit goes to Tony Campolo.

A Holy Balance (Sermon)

 A Holy Balance

Joshua 24:14:15 and Romans 12:1-8

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/19/23

 

Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord. 15 Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. (NRSV)

 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. ² Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴ For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. (NRSV)

 

 

         When reading through Paul’s letter to the Romans, one notices that the Apostle is both passionate and compassionate. He manages to be candid with his criticism and gracious with his readers. He demonstrates the kind of holy balance it takes to be both prophetic and pastoral. And he challenges us to find that same balance.

The word balance may be a little misleading. The dynamic to which Paul invites us is not like a gymnast on a balance beam. It’s more of a one-foot-in/one-foot-out kind of thing. “Do not be conformed to this world,” he says, “but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” This is one of the principal passages from which we extrapolate the adage, Be in the world but not of the world.

Holy balance becomes a kind of paradox that helps us to live amid all the world’s idolatry and fear without forgetting that God’s redeeming love and goodness flow without ceasing at the deepest core of our human being and of all that exists, because the Creation itself is God’s seminal medium for self-revelation.

Now, yes, the world is constantly plagued by both random and human-induced suffering. Then again, the story of Israel and the life of Jesus declare that we experience God no less immediately in the midst of suffering than in the midst of joy and thanksgiving. Being all about transformation and renewal, God demonstrates a particular preference for working through and being known in all that is weak and despised in the world. (1Cor. 1:27-28)

People who, by sheer luck, are born into contexts of privilege, and who feel empowered in that privilege, almost always dismiss the wisdom of being in but not of the world. Their situation tempts them to associate power and privilege with divine favor. It tempts them to deny things like, “Blessed are the poor…the hungry…the meek…the merciful…[and] the persecuted.” (Matthew 5); and things like, “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

Paul seems to find the Romans lacking in the crucial trait of humility. “For by the grace given to me,” he says, “I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.”

Sober judgment.

A philosophy professor named Joe Sachs translated numerous ancient Greek texts, and where the NRSV translators chose “sober judgment,” Sachs would have chosen “temperance.” Either way, says Sachs, the Greek word, sophrosune, refers to the “condition by which one chooses bodily pleasures in the ways and to the extent that they enhance life, not by an effort of self-control but by a harmony of desire with reason.”¹ A willfully-chosen harmony of desire with reason. Talk about a holy balance!

Sachs says that the ancient Greco-Roman culture recognized human desire as crucial aspect of human nature that warranted satisfaction. Paul, himself a Roman, would not entirely disagree. Recall what he said to the Corinthians: “I have the freedom to do anything, but not everything is helpful…[because] I…won’t be controlled by anything.” (1Corinthians 6:12) So, the Apostle is always trying to temper runaway indulgence by encouraging sophrosune. And according to Sachs, this sobriety/temperance is “the stable state of character which, in any mature human being, replaces the overgrown impulses of childhood.”

 “When I was a child,” says Paul, “I spoke…thought…[and] reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” (1Cor. 13:11)

Mature disciples of Jesus inhabit God’s creation with minds constantly open to transformation and direction. Childish minds are vulnerable to the intoxicating ways and means of the world. Greed and fear can overwhelm a mind that has not learned to recognize its longings as potential sources of blessing for others. Consumed by worldly wants, the untransformed mind fixates on its desire for possessions, power, and attention.

How many times has the story been told of people who reach the top of some ladder only to find themselves unfulfilled? How many times have each of us wanted one thing or another, expecting it to complete us in some way, only to have that thing expose nothing more than a deeper emptiness within us? When we strive only to acquire something, we may achieve what economists call “satisfaction,” but we usually end up unsatisfied and wanting more. And that leaves us out of balance.

While it’s important to recognize that reality, it’s even more important not to stop with: Quit wanting stuff. Just want God. Aren’t we physical creatures? And don’t we engage the world not only through our minds, but also through our bodies? Paul encourages us to be prophets, ministers, teachers, givers, andleaders, and we can do those things only in the context of physical reality.

Years ago, the great preacher and teacher Barbara Brown Taylor was invited to speak at an Episcopal church in Alabama. She asked the priest what he wanted her to talk about, and he said, “Come tell us what is saving your life right now.”²

The priest’s invitation made Dr. Brown Taylor stop and think very carefully and creatively. As she thought, prayed, and wrote, she realized that her saving conviction was that “there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends,” she says, “on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them.”

Barbara Brown Taylor is describing the holy balance that blurs the lines between secular and sacred. And she discovers that she becomes most authentically human when she trusts that an authentic path to God necessarily involves a faithful embodiment her own human, physical being in a beloved, physical creation.

Barbara Brown Taylor says all of this in the introduction to her book An Altar in the World: A Geography of God. And in that book, she talks about twelve physical practices through which one can encounter God and deepen one’s faith and one’s ability find blessing in the world and to live as a blessing for others.

It seems to me that Barbara Brown Taylor helps us to understand that inhabiting this Creation as Christian humans means accepting a magnificent and often-frustrating paradox. While we always have one foot in this world, as followers of Jesus, we also have one foot in God’s realm of grace—which is our true hope, identity, and home.

In this week of Thanksgiving, may we all open ourselves to the gifts God gives to each of us, and to the truest, deepest gratitude we find in the transforming presence of the One who creates all things, loves all things, and provides more than enough for all that has being.

 

¹All Joe Sachs references come from: Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle. Translation by Joe Sachs. Focus Publishing, R. Pullins Co., 2002. P. 211.

²All BBT references come from: An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, Barbara Brown Taylor. Harper One, 2009. Pp. xv-xvi.

A New Heaven and a New Earth (Sermon)

 “A New Heaven and a New Earth”

Isaiah 65:17-25 and Colossians 3:12-13

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/12/23

 

17 Look! I’m creating a new heaven and a new earth:
    past events won’t be remembered;
    they won’t come to mind.
18 Be glad and rejoice forever
    in what I’m creating,
    because I’m creating Jerusalem as a joy
    and her people as a source of gladness.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad about my people.
    No one will ever hear the sound of weeping or crying in it again.
20 No more will babies live only a few days,
    or the old fail to live out their days.
The one who dies at a hundred will be like a young person,
    and the one falling short of a hundred will seem cursed.
21 They will build houses and live in them;
    they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They won’t build for others to live in,
    nor plant for others to eat.
Like the days of a tree will be the days of my people;
    my chosen will make full use of their handiwork.
23 They won’t labor in vain,
    nor bear children to a world of horrors,
    because they will be people blessed by the Lord,
    they along with their descendants.
24 Before they call, I will answer;
    while they are still speaking, I will hear.
25 Wolf and lamb will graze together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
    but the snake—its food will be dust.
They won’t hurt or destroy at any place on my holy mountain,
    says the Lord. (CEB)

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (CEB)

 

         Most of Isaiah’s audience knows nothing but exile. Then again, for those Hebrews born and raised in Babylon, distinguishing between exile life and “normal” life is probably splitting hairs because Babylonians manage to be relatively progressive captors. After defeating and dispersing a weaker nation, the Babylonians offer the vanquished the chance to maintain some semblance of self—at least they do for those whom they bring home to Babylon. Instead of treating the Hebrews like Pharaoh did in Egypt, the Babylonians allow the Hebrews to practice their faith and, to some extent, flourish.

         So the Hebrew’s stories remain. Stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Stories about Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and David. Stories about Hebron and Jerusalem. These are stories about providence, redemption, and belonging.

         Then there’s the flip side of the situation. While things could be worse for the Israelites, Isaiah’s prophetic job in Babylon is to make the Hebrews long for Israel. So, when he paints a picture of a “new heaven and a new earth” in which suffering yields to joy, gladness, fruitful vineyards, and homes of their own, Isaiah is acknowledging the fact that the people’s situation in Babylon includes more than enough sadness, servitude, and a deep and haunting homesickness.

         As a prophet of hope, Isaiah not only describes a new future, he declares that God is already at work bringing it about. “Before they call, I will answer,” says God. God is already creating something new in the midst of all that is diminishing and disheartening.

         Isaiah’s prophecy flies in the face of Solomon’s much earlier, conditional prophecy that has been so revered by revivalists: “If my people…pray, [if they] seek my face, and [if they] turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear…forgive...and heal.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

No ifs, says Isaiah. By grace, God is already redeeming Israel. God has already filled out, signed, and turned in a pledge card on behalf of the Israelites. And, because that one nation serves as a symbol for all that God has made and loves, God is acting on behalf of the entire Creation.

As encouraging as that proclamation may be, for the Israelites and for us, Isaiah’s beautiful day prophecy meets some sharp skepticism. What appears real doesn’t look new and promising.

Consider our own context: Poverty. Addiction. Natural disasters, many of which are the result of an out-of-kilter climate. Wars, and not just rumors of wars, but overt threats of escalated conflict. The relentless tyranny of guns and gun violence oppressing us with suspicion and fear. And political rhetoric that crosses the line into hate speech—speech aimed at the very neighbors Jesus calls us to love.

Like ancient Israel, we, too, could use “a new heaven and a new earth.” And given the immediacy and the magnitude of our concerns, it’s a new earth that most of us want. Don’t many of us crave an experience of God’s vision for the future in this moment?

God’s vision declares shalom, that is wholeness and well-being for all. In God’s vision, you and I are aware of, in love with, and eager to celebrate God’s grace by choosing, each day, to live in harmony with our neighbors and the earth.

According to Luke, in Jesus’ first sermon, he reads from Isaiah saying, “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because [God] has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’” Then Jesus lays down the scroll and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18-19, 21) That’s what I want—God’s promises fulfilled today.

        But that just makes me lazy. I say that because isn’t it specifically the work of Jesus-followers to embody in the world God’s vision for the world, today?

In his book Growing Churh Leaders, Dr. Bob Ramey said, “Whatever our denomination…I am convinced [that] we share a common call: [we are] a people called by God to be a sign, a foretaste, and an instrument of the [household] of God.”¹ Dr. Ramey then quoted Walter Bruggeman who said, “The purpose of [our] call is to fashion an alternative community in creation gone awry, to embody in human history the power of the blessing. It is the hope of God that in this new family all human history can be brought to the unity and harmony intended by the one who calls.”² Ramey and Bruggeman are describing God’s new heaven and new earth.

        As the Church, we are called to make room for moments in which God’s vision of redemption and reconciliation burst through. It’s our call to embody the promises of God in our own lives. That’s a tall order because we don’t make those moments happen through individual effort. We humble ourselves, empty ourselves, offer ourselves to the Spirit saying, like Isaiah said when he was called, “Here I am. Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8b) From there, God’s Spirit works through us for the sake of others, undeterred by our lapses into selfishness and idolatry.

        So, our lives—our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits—are the most crucial offerings, the most important pledges, we make to God. For in offering ourselves completely, in faith, hope, and love, we give more than resources. We give to ourselves the best chance to experience God’s new heaven and new earth right here, right now.

While we can receive gifts of grace, when we offer ourselves to God by offering ourselves to others in love, we can experience in far deeper and more transforming ways the holy power and presence of the living God. Sure, it’s good to receive a gift. And sometimes they save us. It’s an even higher thing to experience God loving others through us.

        If you haven’t already, I hope you will make a pledge to support the mission of Jonesborough Presbyterian Church. I challenge all of us to commit ourselves to God’s vision for a whole and holy creation. The relational, hands-on mission to which God calls us is more important than ever right now.

Writing to the Colossians, Paul reminds us that our collective witness depends on how gratefully and fearlessly we, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe [ourselves] with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…[and how we] bear with one another and…forgive each other.” (Colossians 3:12-13)

This morning, we consecrate far more than money.

We consecrate ourselves.

 

¹Robert H. Ramey, Growing Church Leaders, CTS Press, 1995, p. 13.

²Ramey, p. 35, (Ramey is quoting Walter Brueggemann).