Monthly Archives: February 2020

Sermon

Nailing down the mountain top

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Matthew 17:1-9

…And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” (Read the whole passage) (Read the whole passage)

We are on the move again. Jesus is taking us to new places, to see new sights. Our journey first began in Advent. We made our way to Bethlehem, to the stable manger, to the Baby Jesus born to a virgin mother. And our journey continued through Epiphany, where the wise man travelled far to see this saviour born to human parents.

Yet, for the last 4 weeks, we paused. We rested. We took a break on the mountain side as we listened to Jesus sermon on the mount that begins, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” And we listened as Jesus talked about Salt and Light, as Jesus re-interpreted our understanding of the commandments, as Jesus reminded us that we do not save ourselves by our works, but that God alone saves.

Well today, Jesus gathers us up again to go up the mount of Transfiguration. With Peter, James and John, we find ourselves on the mountain top. And we witness something amazing, we witness Jesus transformed. Jesus shows these disciples, and shows us, a glimpse of the glory of God.

And you would think that the disciples would get it. Throughout the Gospel of Matthew, they have been struggling to understand who Jesus is and what Jesus is all about. In this moment, as Jesus is surround by Moses and Elijah, the two most important figures of the Old Testament, the disciples should figure it out. They should be able to see that Jesus is that long hoped for Messiah, the one we waited for in Advent, the one we saw born in a manger, the one we saw begin a ministry of teaching, preaching and healing.

Peter, thinks he has it figured it out. Simon who Jesus has re-named Peter or “The Rock” on which he will build the church. If Peter had been alive today, he would have been a salesman type, maybe the top dog at a car dealership, and he would be chair of the council and he would be the biggest giver in the congregation. When Peter spoke, we all would listen.

And Peter does what Church people do best. Once he finds a good place to worship and good place to experience God, he suggests a building project. If you want to get people excited and involved in the church, build something and people will get on board in droves.

Peter knows that when you find something good, you need to get it nailed down, make sure you can keep hold of it as long as you can.

(Pause)

Jim had been a member of the St. David’s property committee for 2 years now. One Saturday a month, he would meet with the committee in the church basement at 7AM. Or least that was the official start time, but the rest of the committee, Jim suspected, was always there long before 7:00, with half finished cups of coffee in hand. At the age of 47, Jim was the youngest member by at least 25 years.

Each month, Simon, the chair of the committee, would call the meeting to order and then read a list of chores that had accumulated over the previous month. Simon was definitely the leader of the group, whatever he decided, was the rule of law for the property committee. After Simon read the list, the committee would spend the morning carrying out their list of tasks. Changing light bulbs, replacing furnace filters, tightening screws and nails anywhere they were loose.

This month however, Simon did not read from his list. This month he passed around a sheet of paper to each member. It was a list of questions. Simon then spoke, “Our worship attendance has been growing. The church is almost full every Sunday and I think it is time we expanded our sanctuary and added some improvements. When I suggested the idea to council, they were not in favour. So we are going to poll the congregation and then show council that this is what everyone wants”. Simon read the list of questions on the survey. Would your worship experience be enhanced by a nicer sanctuary? Would upholstered pews be more comfortable? Would adding a balcony allow more people to attend? Would you be willing to give more offering for a renovation?

Jim felt uneasy about this idea, but Simon had already placed a copy in every member’s mailbox.

(Pause)

We are often like Peter on the mountaintop. When we find something good or that we like, we want to get it nailed down. Peter sees Jesus transfigured and wants to keep him that way. We see God’s glory in some manner and we wish we could control it.

But Jesus has different ideas.

Jesus is merely passing through. Jesus is on the move. Jesus has plans for transformation. Jesus no intention of stopping now.

Jesus invited Peter, James and John up the mountain. And Jesus brought them in order to reveal glimpse of divinity, a glimpse of God. But Jesus is also headed down the mountain. As Jesus reveals himself to these three disciples, Jesus is showing them, not just who he is, but what he is going to do. Or in other words, Jesus is set to show the disciples that God is about do something that will change and transform the whole world. God is putting into motion a new way for creation. God is reversing the direction of travel, and planning a new way for the world, a new path.

Peter’s desire to nail things down, to control this wonderful moment points to a deeper problem within us. Our desire to keep things controlled and unchanging, to make sure we keep a hold of the things we think are good. And this leads us only in one direction. When we nail things down we are headed towards death.

(Pause)

The following month at the St. David’s Property committee meeting, Jim arrived a little late. He joined in the middle of Simon reading, one at a time, the responses to his survey. The responses seemed to neither for nor against renovating. People were somewhat interested but not really enough to want to pay for anything too costly. Simon seemed to be getting more and more frustrated with every response he read.

Simon finally got to the last survey. Simon’s face turned red as he looked at it. He slammed it down on the table… Jim could see that only one question had been answered. Simon hadn’t even read the answer, and instead was fuming in his seat because he had been expecting overwhelming support for his plan.

Jim picked the survey up and began reading the one answer out loud. It was to the question “Would your worship experience be enhanced by a nicer sanctuary”.

“Dear property committee” someone wrote.

“I live in world that is always trying to be or get the newest and best thing. In my job, I have to be constantly looking for more, to be better, to find something that will attract more buyers. I feel like I am always running up a mountain.

That is why I come here. That is why I worship here. At St.David’s I get to come down the mountain. When I see the people around me, when we sing and pray, when we share the peace and drink coffee together, I get to see God. And God isn’t on the mountaintop. God comes down to be with me, with us. God walks with me, and after I worship here each week, I am reminded that Jesus goes with me, that Jesus comes and trudges up my mountain each week and he brings me back down, back to be here with you. Back to the place where I can see God in your faces, and I can hear God’s voice in your voices. That is why I worship here, not because of the building, but because of the people, because of you.”

Jim set the paper down. For the first time Jim had ever seen, the group was silent. Most were just staring into their coffee. Simon was just staring at Jim.

Jim then said to the committee, “That was my survey”.

Simon simply nodded and said, “Well, I guess that is that. Let’s get back to work”. And off the committee went attending to their regular monthly chores.

(Pause)

As Church people, even we can forget what Jesus is doing in our world, what Jesus is doing right here among us. Today, we are reminded of who Jesus is, we glimpse the glory of God and then Jesus brings us down the mountain, despite Peter’s desire to nail things down.

We are descending into Lent. We on our way with Jesus into the valley and shadow of death. We will be reminded on Ash Wednesday that we are dust and ash. We will be reminded that we are dead. And journey through Lent will take us to the next the next mountain.

We will go with Jesus to Golgatha.

And on mount Golgatha Jesus will finally be nailed down.

Jesus will hang on a cross.

What Peter wanted to preserve on the mount of Transfiguration today, humanity will want to kill on Good Friday.

But that is what God has come to show us. Not that Jesus can be transformed, but that Jesus is going to do the transforming. Jesus is going stare death right in the face and change it. Move it. Transform it. Re-make it.

Death will no longer be death. We will no longer be dead.

Death will become life. We will be made alive.

Alive in Christ. Alive to move and change and be different. Alive to go with Jesus up and down the mountains. Alive with Jesus to see God in people around us and to be reminded that we are not alone but that we are on the journey together.

Sermon

To whom do we belong

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GOSPEL: Matthew 5:21-37

[Jesus said to the disciples:] 21“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. (Read the whole passage)

Ouch, that was a bit rough. Jesus isn’t taking it easy on us. The sermon on the mount that began so gently with “blessed are the poor in spirit,” sure seems to take a turn towards some hard truths today. It is our 3rd week in a row of listening to that familiar sermon from Jesus, and the tone has changed a lot from when we began.

We are on the final green Sunday before we turn towards Transfiguration, Ash Wednesday and Lent. And this season following the Epiphany, the day on which the magi came to honour the Christ-child feels like it was lifetime ago. We have since then watched a grown up Jesus get baptized in the Jordan, meet his first disciples and call them from their fishing boats and now preach this 3 weeks long sermon on the mount.

And this list of things that Jesus talks about today is not so friendly: Murder, judgment, hell, adultery, lust, divorce, sin and swearing falsely. A bunch of things that would make for a really easy opportunity to preach a hell-fire and brimstone, turn-or-burn kind of sermon. You know, one of those sermon that your grandma used you warn you about hearing from the pastor. And to be sure, this part of the sermon on the mount has been used for that kind of preaching, and used to condemn and shame people.

Yet, we haven’t forgotten was Jesus was talking about for the past couple of weeks, the beatitudes followed by salt and light – things that are not so easy to turn into condemnation. It seems strange that within the same sermon, Jesus would go from promising God’s blessing for the poor in spirit, the mourning and meek, the peacemakers and persecuted to condemning people who don’t measure up.

And so of course, we know that this isn’t really about the threat of hell and condemnation that it appears to be on the surface.

So what is Jesus getting at?

After three weeks in the sermon on the mount, there is a theme beginning to emerge in Jesus’ preaching. A theme that only make sense when we unpack the world of the crowds sitting on the mountain listening to what Jesus had to say.

For the people of Israel, religion was a complicated system of keeping righteous, keeping in God’s good books. Follow the law, the laws handed on by Moses to the people escaping slavery in Egypt and wandering in the desert, and you will be righteous. And you will know you are righteous because you will be blessed. Blessed with health, wealth and status. You will be what God has deemed us to be, salty salt, light shining for all to see.

Except that most people weren’t blessed, most people weren’t salty sal or bright shining lights. Most people couldn’t keep the laws and remain righteous.

And so these unrighteous, unclean crowds had to find hope in other places. Hope in the desert listening to hermit preachers like John the Baptist. Hope on the mountainside listening to wandering rabbis like this Jesus of Nazareth.

And right off the bat, Jesus undercuts this system of keeping righteous. Blessed are poor in spirit, the meek and the mourning, the peacemakers and the persecuted. The blessings that you thought were signs of righteous are not in fact blessings — God’s presence is with the people you least expect.

And don’t strive for holiness and righteousness, strive to be what God called you to. If God has you to be salt, you are salt. If God has made you to be light, you are light.

Finally today, Jesus gets into the nitty gritty of the 10 commandments, the very core of the rules that if followed will lead to righteousness. And Jesus begins turning them on their heads too. These commandments aren’t checkboxes that if filled gain entry into heaven. Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t lie or bear false witness or steal. Simply not killing, or cheating or not telling an untruth or not slandering your neighbour is not enough. Each step of the way, Jesus elaborates and explains that these commands are also about loving our neighbour. About maintaining good relationships and caring for the people around us, not just limits on certain behaviours.

And when added up, Jesus’ message is: You are not as righteous or unrighteous as you thought, you are not as holy and perfect are you thought, and you haven’t kept the law as you thought. But more importantly, you are not earning your own salvation like you thought.

Of course, things are little different for us in our world. We don’t operate by quite such a rigid and structured a system as the people of Israel. Salvation and righteousness aren’t understood in such a clear cut path in our world.

In fact, knowing whether or not we are righteous really isn’t the right question for us as it was for the people sitting on the mountain listening to Jesus preach. For us, the question is more a matter of how… how do we attain righteousness and salvation. And our world has a plethora of answers. If you follow the rules, if you pray hard enough, if you are a good person, if you are enlightened enough, if you buy the next magic solution that someone is selling, if you are secure, protected and powerful enough… You too can be righteous and saved. All for one low cost, all for following the latest trend or fad, all for a little easy work in 20 minutes a day, all for following the simple steps, all for having the right relationships and network.

Righteousness and salvation in our world is about hearing the right voice in the multitude of voices vying for our attention and our dollar, about hearing the right voice long enough to hand over something of enough value to earn our salvation.

Except we know that this is all fake news and false hope too.

And just like the rigid system of rules that Jesus is undermining on the mountain, he is also undermining the multitude of voices in our world that tell us they know the secret to being saved.

Even if our questions are different from the people of Israel, our problem is the same. We are trying to earn our own salvation, trying to be righteous by our own efforts.

It is in the letter to the Corinthians where St. Paul states clearly the issue that Jesus is coming around to.

To whom do we belong? To Paul or Apollos? Will following this guy or that guy, these rules or those rules, this path or path earn you salvation?

No.

No, following neither will make us righteous.

To whom do we belong?

For we are God’s servants working together, you are God’s field, God’s building.

For we are God’s servants

For we are God’s.

To people wondering if they are saved, if they have done enough rule following Jesus says, Don’t worry about that. You belong to God.

To people wondering how to be saved, if we have found the right path, chosen the right thing, Jesus says, Don’t worry about that. You belong to God.

You belong to God.

And it is God who decides if you are blessed, God who comes and searches out the poor in spirit, the meek, the mourning, the merciful, the peacemakers, the persecuted

And it is God who makes you right. God who makes you salty if you are salt, God who makes you shine if you are light.

And it is God who saves, God who makes you righteous. So don’t follow the rules because they make you right with God, but because your neighbour needs your love and care.

God is the one earning our salvation. This is what Jesus has been getting at for 3 weeks.

And this is what Jesus is preparing us to keep at the forefront as we move towards Transfiguration and Lent.

We belong to God, the One who makes us righteous, the One who saves us.

We don’t achieve it ourselves. We don’t find the right path or follow the right rules. We don’t save ourselves.

God does the saving work. And God does it in the one preaching the sermon on the mount, salvation comes to us in the Christ.

You don’t belong to Paul or Apollos. You don’t belong to yourselves.

You belong to God in Christ, the one making you righteous in all the unexpected places, the one making you alive when all there seems to be death.

The One who will meet us on the mountaintop, the One who goes with us into the valley, the One who will be nailed to a cross, and One who is raised from the dead.

You belong to that Christ, you are made righteous and saved by that Christ, and freed to love your neighbour, who is also loved by Christ.

And so on this day, at this end of the sermon on the mount, on the precipice of Lent…

Jesus reminds us one last time… it is not how we follow the rules or how blessed we think we are or how much good we do…

But rather is about to whom we belong.

And we are servants belonging to God, brought to new life in Christ.

Sermon, Theology & Culture

#Blessed are…

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Matthew 5:1-12

1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

  3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Read the whole passage)

When Peter and Andrew, James and John hopped out of their fishing boats to follow Jesus, to fish for people… I wonder if they thought about changing their minds when they heard Jesus preach the sermon on the mount?

Since Christmas and Epiphany, we have found ourselves on a journey of revelation with Jesus. First it was the heavens opening up with God’s voice thundering over the crowds. And then it was the John’s disciples following this Jesus fellow to see what the fuss was about this. And then it was Jesus walking down the beach calling his first disciples, fishermen of all people, to come and follow.

Three moments early in the ministry of Jesus that reveal to us just who this baby that we were singing carols about only a month ago has grown into.

Today, we hear this first sermon of Jesus’ in the Gospel of Matthew, the familiar sermon of blessings.

Yet, as familiar as these beatitudes are to us, I think there is something uncomfortable about them, at the very least for those first disciples. They had probably expected that following a Rabbi was going to be an upgrade on fishing for a living, a chance to be respected members of the community, to join the upper echelon of religious authorities. And along with this change in their lot in life, the disciples probably expected to become the ones doing the judging rather than the judged. To be the ones measuring others by the rules of Israel rather than always being the ones failing to measure up.

And yet, in Jesus’ first sermon he throws that dream of his disciples out the window. Instead of a sermon on rule following and keeping the law, Jesus dives right into the heart of the human condition.

And when we start listening to the beatitudes, they quickly become a list of things that remind us the messy brokenness of humanity:

Blessed are the poor in spirit… those who mourn… the meek… those who hunger and thrift for righteousness… the merciful who need mercy… the pure in heart… the peacemakers… the persecuted.

In fact, the deeper into the Beatitudes Jesus gets, the less and less the blessings come through. Jesus cuts through the surface stuff, right to the heart of what it means to be a human beings in a broken world. The disciples probably imagined that they would get to ease into this stuff rather than deal with it on day one. They probably wanted to stay at the easy part of religion… how following that rules will earn us salvation… how being a good person will get us into God’s good books.

We certainly get what the disciples were probably feeling. It is much easier to stay in the surface stuff, the manageable and controllable stuff. Rule following and do-gooding.

It isn’t all that enjoyable to be confronted by the hard stuff, to have to think about big questions and hard problems. Isn’t it enough that the news is bombarding with hard and scary things every day. Things like the impeachment trial of the US president and all the political partisanship that comes along with it. Things like the New Coronavirus, something new to terrify us every time we turn on the TV or Radio or open up our phones. Or the othering and demonizing of Chinese people as if they are to blame for the virus. Things like earthquakes in the Caribbean, fires still burning in Australia, Brexit and newborns being removed from their mothers simply because they are Indigenous and considered high-risk.

Isn’t it enough to have to deal with all that stuff during the week? Why does Jesus to have to get into just how broken our world is too… isn’t church supposed to make us feel better? Isn’t Jesus supposed to make that stuff just go away? Especially if we just follow the rules and are good people?

It is easy to just drop the blessing part from the Beatitudes. It is easy to hear just the list of things that remind us our broken world.

Or rather, it should be easy. Except Jesus keeps coming back to blessing.

It is like he won’t let us forget. Jesus could have just said blessed once. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness…

But Jesus keeps coming back to blessing.

Just in case those listening to his sermon missed it. Just in case his disciples didn’t make the connection that here on this mountain, that this crowd of people, this crowd of the unwashed masses are precisely the people that Jesus was going fishing for.

Jesus keeps coming back to blessing.

9 times he says, “Blessed are…”

And the 10th time he says, Rejoice and be glad.

Blessed are.

Here in this midst of all these examples of the brokenness of the world… blessing.

Here, in this messy and hard struggle called life, is blessing.

We so often think of blessings as good things, so we struggle to understand the beatitudes as blessings. Blessings are health, wealth, happiness, comfort, escape, security, at least to our minds.

Yet, blessings in scripture is not those things. Blessings are not things to possess, not rewards for good behaviour or achievements for excellence.

Blessing is promise.

To bless something, or someone really, is to name the presence of God.

We know this already. We practice it every time we gather. We greet each other in the name of Triune God to begin worship, and we proclaim God’s promise to be with us as go. We bless the word we hear, we ask for God’s blessing as we pray. We bless the bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Christ by declaring that God is present in these gifts.

Blessing is the promise of God to be with us.

And so the Beatitudes are declarations of the places that God is going. The places where God is intending to do God’s work. The people to whom the Messiah is going to bring the good news of the Kingdom.

“Blessed are” Jesus says 9 times.

And it isn’t a list of all the people who are wealthy, healthy, happy, comfortable, and secure.

It is a list showing us real life, real brokenness and suffering, real struggle and hardship.

But also a promise and proclamation of all the places and people that Jesus is coming for. The people that Jesus called his first disciples to help him fish for.

And as hard as it is to be faced again with the reality of our broken world, it is God’s promise to meet us in the brokenness that truly matters. It the only thing that has something to say too all that other stuff we hear throughout the week.

Whether it is broken political systems and governments, or new viruses and a media hellbent on terrifying us, or the accompanying othering of people who we think are responsible, or earthquakes or fires or broken families.

God is with us all of that, and with us.

God is with us in as we die to sin and in new life in the waters of baptism.

God is with us as we hear again the promise of mercy and forgiveness for sinners.

God is with us making us one in the bread and wine we share transforming us into the Body of Christ.

Blessed are Jesus declares today… and yes.. this familiar sermon asks the disciples and us to again face the reality of our broken world.

But the blessings also reveals in Jesus, just where this promised Messiah is going, where this promised Messiah is calling us to go, and to whom this promised Messiah is sent.

Blessed are Jesus says.

Blessed are you for whom I have come and I will always be with.

Amen.