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.

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.

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.

Living As Though (Sermon)

“Living As Though”

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

1/25/15

         Whether persecuting Christians or being persecuted as a Christian, Paul lives with unmistakable passion and tangible faithfulness to his convictions. On the other hand, in spite of all that he seems to get “right” enough, the apostle constantly lives in the grip of some crucially, and at times tragically mistaken convictions.

         From our perspective, Paul is mistaken in his initial denial of Jesus as the Christ.  Because of that mistake, he commits the more wide-ranging mistake of trying to use shock-and-awe terrorism to bully Christians into recanting their faith.

After his Damascus Road experience, Paul focuses his energies on preaching Jesus. And one premise for preaching is his mistaken notion that Jesus will literally and presently return to lead God’s people into the glorious days of messianic reign on earth.

Jesus does not return when and how Paul expects. And while one can imagine him crying out like Jonah, disappointed and maybe even a disillusioned, Paul sows the seeds of his own peace in his first letter to the embattled church at Corinth.

         The Corinthian Christians face deep disorientation. As groups within the church begin to identify with and to revolve around particular individuals, the community fragments.

“It has been reported to me,” says Paul in Chapter 1, “that there are quarrels among you…What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

         The apostle is scoffing at the idea that Christ has been divided. “What I mean,” he says, ‘is that Jesus is one and whole; and if the community is to survive it must revolve around Jesus.’

         In Chapter 7, Paul gets serious again. “I mean, brothers and sisters,” ‘that even though it looks like God’s promises are unraveling, and even though it feels like God has disappeared, God is present and faithful.’

‘The world is changing,’ says Paul. And this is not a bad thing. ‘Indeed,’ he says, ‘God is behind and within the changes happening to outward forms, but spiritual substance remains true.’

Paul’s words to the first-century church in Corinth hold relevance for the Church in 2015. Now, God is not calling us to “return” to old ways of thinking and being. On the contrary, I hear Paul challenging us to evolve ever deeper in our understanding of who God is and who we are as creatures made in God’s image. We cannot live with conviction in the emerging forms of faith while sipping the spiritual milk of static absolutes.

Paul challenges us, he dares us to live in the here and now of physical existence As Though God’s kingdom has arrived in its fullness.

On one level, Paul’s teaching sounds like an invitation to play make-believe. But living in the As Though of faith is not an act of denial. Living As Though is to engage the bold, creative Purpose who, billions of years ago, began the process of turning a seething and explosive chaos into the magnificent creation we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, and wonder at today.

To live in the As Though of the Kingdom of God means to inhabit the physical reality of life with an eye toward the eternal reality that gives physical reality its true meaning. Living As Though transforms – and here I use Paul’s categories – marriage, mourning, rejoicing, owning, and even politics into platforms for experiencing and sharing God’s grace and presence in and for the world. This is no siimple task. It demands that we regard all of our relationships from the As Though point of view – that is from the already-redeemed place of wholeness and grace.

The tricky thing about this is that we all move in and out of various As Though configurations. When I choose to live As Though everyone is motivated by selfishness, I treat every stranger with suspicion and fear. When I choose to live As Though World War III will happen in my lifetime, I make war a holy endeavor. And I will teach my kids that their highest calling lies in their expendability, and in their capacity to render others expendable. When we live As Though the physical creation is fundamentally corrupt, we treat the earth and our very own bodies as if they are evils to be punished and escaped rather than sacredgifts to be treasured and cared for.

The As Though of Jesus is very different. Jesus calls us to live in the As Though of the Kingdom, where the image of God is apparent within all human beings, and even within all creation.

Last Tuesday I went with some friends to see the movie Selma. This extraordinarily important story reveals some competing As Thoughs at work in the world. The Governor George Wallaces and Sheriff Jim Clarks of the world live in the As Though of racism and overt violence. They live As Though a person’s humanity and ultimate worth are determined by skin color. If a person’s skin is not white, that person might be killed, but he or she cannot be murdered. Within the As Though of George Wallace and Jim Clark, to be murdered, or even treated unjustly, is a privilege of race.

Martin Luther King, and others like him live in the As Though of equality and justice. Within that Christlike As Though, faithful ones not only advocate for justice, they discover the almost inhuman strength to forgive those who persecute them.

To his fellow black South Africans Desmond Tutu has said, “Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.”¹

The bishop’s words echo a rather famous, kingdom prayer: “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34a)

In the Jesus who prays and lives that prayer, the kingdom of God is arriving. So, says Paul, “let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.”

Now, are we to stop marrying, mourning, rejoicing, purchasing the things we need, or dealing with the world around us? Of course not. But when, for example, a person realizes that every purchase has a price beyond dollars, and if she cares about the expense of producing and procuring an item to the extent that she is willing to do without it if that expense is the well-being of others, then she is living, or at least learning to live in the newly-emerging form. She is learning to live in the As Though of God’s kingdom.

The world is changing with terrifying speed, so we have much in common with the Corinthian Christians. Many of us do feel pulled in different directions, pulled to align ourselves with some Paul, Apollos, or Cephas, someone who seems As Though they are making good sense in an increasingly senseless world.

And into our own disorientation Paul says: Live As Though the Christ for whom you wait has come. And take heart, for in truth, he has.

¹http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/desmondtut188470.html

Dangerous Greatness (Sermon - For Officer Ordination/Installation)

“Dangerous Greatness”

Mark 9:33-37

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

1/18/15

         In his play Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare puts these memorable words on the lips of his character Malvolio: “…some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.”¹

         I suppose a handful of folks are born to greatness by virtue of some innate gift, or passion, or sense of purpose that takes hold of them and catapults them toward extraordinary achievement. Mozart, Leonardo DaVinci, and even Shakespeare himself come to mind.

         Others apply themselves to a discipline or a cause with such determined industry that they arrive at an unimagined level of prominence. That kind of diligence helped Abraham Lincoln become not just another politician, but an authentic statesman. 

         Still others find themselves swept up in circumstances beyond their control. Holding on for dear life, they find themselves in the grasp of a grace and a strength which also lie beyond their control. Being good stewards of those gifts, they not only survive, they make a difference. Considering the influence of people like Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Malala Yousafzai, I think God has a particular preference for this kind of greatness.

         Simply being in the presence of greatness can make one feel great, as well.  During January of my second year in seminary, I spent in 21 days in the Czech Republic and Hungary learning about the church’s long history of struggle and triumph in Eastern Europe. For three weeks I was immersed some of the world’s greatest stories. Walking across the Charles Bridge and up to Castle Hill in Prague, I felt the weight of centuries of proud achievement and almost prodigal confidence in the sheer magnificence of that ancient city. Standing in the 700 year-old synagogue in the Jewish ghetto I heard the echoes of a persecuted people’s great pain and great faith. In the vibrant, uncomplicated people of the tiny hamlet of Biharkeresztes, Hungary, I watched tempered hope hold hands with unhindered hospitality. And I had these experiences in the company of professors and classmates whom I felt were so much smarter than me. All of this made me feel keener, more alert, more aware of the life with and around me. Never had I felt so confident, so capable of doing great things.

         Then I came home. And back in Decatur, Georgia there were diapers to change, dishes to wash, clothes to fold, and game after game of Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land to play. At first these things felt like intrusions into the tight schedule of a great traveler, and terrible strains on the delicate psyche of a great thinker. It took me a while me to come around and recognize my pathetic selfishness. It took me a while to embrace again the greatness of the seemingly unremarkable responsibilities of belonging in a family.

         Perhaps the disciples, after having spent so much time around Jesus, begin to feel that heady surge of greatness. They have seen Jesus perform indescribable wonders. They have heard him teach with an authority that both silences and riles his opponents. Most humbling, he has trusted them to minister in his name. Day after day the disciples feel the presence of dangerous greatness. And I say dangerous not just because Jesus calls us into dangerous situations, but because of the temptation to think that his call somehow makes us greater than others.

         To that temptation Jesus says, “No. If you want true greatness, you must seek it in places that power and wealth do not expect to find it. Don’t go the front of the line. Go to the back. Kingdom greatness doesn’t sit at the head table. It works in the kitchen.”

         The Church has taught for 2000 years that to “reach heaven,” one must avoid hell. But Jesus has always said the opposite. The biblical image of hell derives from the word gehenna, the burning trash heap just outside of a town. Hell, then, is our creation, not God’s. Jesus shows us, then, that the kingdom’s redeeming path strolls directly, and necessarily, through every hell that humankind can create.

To emphasize his point, Jesus sets a child in his lap and says, “If in my name you welcome even one such as this…you have welcomed me, and not just me…but the One who has sent me.”

         We have lost the outrage of this image. In our culture, children are held in much higher regard than in first century Palestine. This is good, of course, but it also means that you and I have to be very careful not to sentimentalize this passage. To imagine Jesus as some favorite uncle is to gloss over the scandal. In his culture, most children live in a deep hell. They are often neglected and abused, and occasionally sacrificed to other gods. To feel the same impact, imagine Jesus honoring a one-legged slave in the antebellum south, an elderly Jewish woman in Nazi Germany, or a panhandling illegal immigrant in contemporary America.

         “If you want to be great,” Jesus tells his disciples, “put aside your selfish ambitions and fears and become servants to all people, and to all the creation. I’ll decide what needs to be changed,” he says, “within them and within you. You just love one another and the earth. I’ll do the rest.”

         To be at the far, desperate back of the line, says Jesus, loving those whom the “great ones” of society do not even know exist, this is to welcome and to love God.

         Today we ordain and install new officers in Jonesborough Presbyterian Church. And these officers, like all who hold any church office, have been chosen to lead a congregation into the future, to guide them through exciting times and challenging times. But as leaders of God’s people, the extent to which church leaders can lead is dependent on our ability to follow God’s Christ. Church leadership is a matter not of power, but of the dangerous greatness of authority, and that authority comes not from the leaders themselves. It comes from the One whom the leaders follow with humility and grace.

         To those of you who will be ordained and installed today, and to all who seek to follow and to serve the Christ: Welcome to the back of the line.

¹http://www.william-shakespeare.info/quotes-quotations-play-twelfth-night.htm

Voices (Sermon - A Story)

“Voices”

Psalm 29

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

1/11/15

         I’m realizing something about psalmists, and it’s something not just to know but to love about them: Many psalmists have no interest in imposing heavy theology on their readers – no doctrines or laws. Psalmists are poets, you see. And poets, like all artists, don’t tell. They show. They reveal. They open doors and windows to experiences of holy wonder, experiences of God. Homiletics professor Dave Bland says that the writer of Psalm 29 is doing exactly that. He takes us into a thunderstorm so that we might experience not the storm, but Yahweh.¹

         As I read Psalm 29, follow along in a Bible if you like. Or close your eyes and imagine yourself in some place where you hear, see, feel, smell, and even taste the storm as it forms in the distance, as it sweeps over you, then passes, leaving you in that splendid, electric freshness that follows a thunderstorm.

Psalm 29

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,

ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name;

worship the Lord in holy splendor.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;

the God of glory thunders,

the Lord, over mighty waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful;

the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;

the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,

and Sirion like a young wild ox.

The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.

The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;

the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl,     

and strips the forest bare;

and in his temple all say, “Glory!”

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;

the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.

May the Lord give strength to his people!

May the Lord bless his people with peace!

         Nothing I can say about Psalm 29 can improve on the way the psalmist shares his encounter with God. With your indulgence, though, I will share an experience of my own.

~~~~~~~~~~~

         Some doctor scheduled our first child’s arrival for September 17. Since babies don’t feel compelled to cooperate with such things, the child waited. (Boy or girl? We chose to be surprised.) Four days later there was a storm, but not a thunderstorm. It was a massive low-pressure system called Hurricane Hugo.

When it became clear that baby and storm would make landfall together, there was a flurry of phone calls between our home in Statesboro, GA and my parent’s home in Augusta. Our plan, you see, had been to go to a birthing center in the little town of Rincon, GA about 20 miles northwest of Savannah. We’d gone through all the birthing classes there. Marianne was in love with the midwives and with their philosophy of childbirth.

         “I do not want to have my baby in a hospital,” she said. “I am not sick. I’m pregnant!” Nurse Nancy and Nurse Margaret agreed, and they treated their patients accordingly.

         But just offshore, Hugo’s ravenous 140-mile-per-hour winds were clawing their way toward Savannah. We weighed our two options: Go to a nice, safe hospital in Augusta; or, literally, throw caution to the wind, and like Odysseus, face the Cyclops.

         It wasn’t as heroic as all that, of course. We had talked with the midwife.

“We’re going to be here,” said Nancy. “Our families will be here. The doctor is here. If necessary, he can do an emergency C-section. We have a generator. I feel good about you being here.”

         Believing herself to represent the voice of reason, my mom weighed in. “I will come to get you,” she said. “I’ll send a helicopter, or the national guard. Just don’t have my first grandchild in some hippie barn during that hurricane!”

“I…am not…sick,” said Marianne.

The voice of intent and faith had spoken.

         If you live near the southeast coast of the United States, and you see dark clouds churning, unnaturally, from east-to-west, a knot will form in the pit of your stomach. It will stir and kick. It can make you queasy. In sighs too deep for words, I breathed my prayers. My anxious voice mingled with countless other voices, and with the Voice, the Voice behind, before, and within all things – the Voice that creates, rearranges, and reunites.

In a way that I will never understand, Marianne and that Voice had begun a profoundly intimate conversation. My wife and I would speak some, but until the storms had passed, I was little more than a weather satellite. I might keep watch and collect some data, but overall I just stayed in my little orbit. I felt rather helpless to do much more.

I did pack the car and secured the brand new car seat in the back. Marianne walked around inside the tiny, green house we rented from the kind old couple next door. With motherhood approaching, Marianne kept her eyes closed. She breathed deeply. The life within her churned like the clouds outside.

When it was time to go, I walked her to the car, and helped her into the front seat. As we drove toward Rincon, ours was the only vehicle heading east. In our eyes shined a seamless stream of headlights – coastal residents evacuating to storm shelters in Statesboro.

I glanced at Marianne. Like the blue sky that shimmers unseen above even the most violent storm, she was at peace with the world above, beneath, and within her. She was at one with the forces of creation that have been, for untold billions of years, shaping and reshaping all that our eyes may see and our minds may know. She was a part of a sacred and eternal process of imagination, hope, and Love. Mothers may know this as others do not. To the extent of its humility, and to its willingness to be vulnerable and to suffer, the artist within us may know it, too. Outside of that, we simply receive their blessings, and we bless them as we are able.

In Rincon, Marianne walked into the birthing center like a caterpillar surrendering to its body’s impulse to create a cocoon. Surrounding herself with deep breath, she continued to pace and to live beyond the bounds of her own life.

After we had been in Rincon for about two hours, news came. It was welcome news – for us. Hugo had turned slightly north. The eye of that powerful storm now glared at Charleston, SC. But even for us, there would be no mistaking the sound of Hugo’s voice.

Late than night, as the storm surge crested, in some places as high as 20 feet, Marianne’s water broke. A little later the midwife spoke, her calm and breezy voice suddenly an urgent gust.

“Okay, Marianne, it’s time to push!”

Live oaks along the coast bent at steep, westward angles as the storm made landfall. Branches and trees that were strained beyond their strength snapped like twigs. Homes, old and new, swayed in the wind. Siding peeled off of walls as easily as one would peel bark from a river birch. Pine cones, sticks, trash cans, luckless birds, anything that had not been secured became dangerous projectiles in Hugo’s roar. Storm waters overwhelmed the sewersand flipped manhole covers like bottle caps in the surf.

Through much of the night, the storm howled and imposed its transforming will on the land. Life would be forever different for this part of creation. Some losses were permanent, and even that which could be rebuilt had been re-storied by the storm, and so would never be quite the same.

September 21, 1989. Marianne and I named the change who stormed into our lives, Benjamin.

When the wind had calmed and the rain had eased, Marianne, who had not slept, awoke, nonetheless. She awoke to a new world and a new life. She stayed awake all night holding, beholding, nursing and welcoming the wondrous new voice that God – that Imagination, Hope, and Love – had spoken into her arms.

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood…

May the Lord give strength to his people!

May the Lord bless his people with peace!

¹Dave Bland, Psalm 29: Homiletical Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Westminster/John Knox Press, Atlanta, GA, 2008. p. 225.