Sermons - Engineering My Faith

May 16, 2021May 16, 2021

Witnesses of Grace

A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church of Cuba. Based on Luke 24:44-53 and Acts 1:1-11.

This year, I’m using a book called The Year of the Bible, by James Davison. He was previously a Presbyterian pastor and just retired from being a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. The Year of the Bible is structured so that every day, you read a couple chapters from the Old Testament plus either a New Testament chapter or a Psalm. If you stay on top of things, you end up reading the whole Bible in a year. I slacked off in February and March, so I will have to re-do parts of it, though.

Most people who try to read the whole Bible get bogged down somewhere around Leviticus or Numbers. There is no doubt that it’s a slog. Leviticus is a bunch of rules, most of which make no sense. Numbers is full of Israelites grumbling and testing God’s patience. Again and again, God threatens to abandon them, Moses intercedes, and God relents. There are consequences, but in the end, God upholds their covenant and promises to make Israel a mighty nation in the Promised Land.

The story in Numbers is a microcosm of the whole Hebrew Bible. From the very beginning, God is present with first individuals and then tribes and nations, the fickle humans turn their back on God, and God says, “OK, I’ll forgive you THIS time, but don’t do it again.” When Judah pushes God too far, they are exiled to Babylon, but even then, God eventually relents, the exile ends, and the Temple is re-built.

In the passages preceding what we read today, the disciples are in turmoil. They think God has abandoned them yet again. Let’s review the story arc. Jesus makes his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, but then he is arrested and crucified. The disciples’ hopes for a restoration of Israel are dashed. They thought Jesus was the Messiah who would expel the Romans, cleanse the nation, and rule an earthly kingdom devoted to worshipping God. Now they know that cannot happen, for their leader is dead. The whole movement has come to an end, with everyone fleeing in fear for their lives. A few days later, they discover the tomb to be empty—they are even deprived of a grave where they can reverence their murdered leader. In the midst of their grief, Jesus appears to open their minds to understand the scriptures. First he walks with a couple disciples on the road to Emmaus, then he appears to all of the disciples gathered together. Now they understand: God’s kingdom is not an earthly regime, but instead God rules over each person’s heart. Jesus is indeed the Messiah. He has not abandoned them, but instead, will be present with them. Well, sorta: as soon as Jesus gets done teaching them, he leaves them again, but with a promise to send help. Next week, we will hear about what comes next: the Holy Spirit will descend upon the disciples. God will always be present with them, and with us. Once again, humanity has broken the covenant by killing God’s anointed one, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, but once again, God forgives.

But why? Why does this all happen? The key is in the middle of Jesus’s teachings to his disciples. “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” The Messiah had to be killed and raised so that the disciples could witness God’s ultimate forgiveness and share it with the world.

The Greek word that we translate “forgiveness” is “aphesin.” It has other connotations like freedom, deliverance, and remission. It comes from a root that is something like “sending away.” In the Presbyterian version of the Lord’s Prayer, we refer to sins as debts. They are debts to God. That’s a useful metaphor because debt is so common to us. We incur debt to buy a car or a house. Most of us carry credit cards so that we can incur debt on a moment’s notice, even for something as trivial as lunch. Meanwhile, the US government currently has an outstanding debt of $28 trillion. We are swimming in debt, just as we are swimming in sin.

Many people take out loans for college. The premise is that your college education should improve your future employability and earning potential, so you are essentially borrowing as your future self. But sometimes, things don’t work out that way. For example, when we had kids, my wife was no longer able to work, so we didn’t have her income to help pay her student loans. This is a common enough situation that there is a process in place to address it. Requesting a deferral is pretty easy. The loan continues to accrue interest, but payments are not required—yet. Still, the debt remains. This is not forgiveness, but forbearance.

For decades, real estate became increasingly valuable, so borrowing money to buy a house seemed like a fine idea. Then in 2008, suddenly the real estate market crashed and home values dropped. Suddenly, people were “upside-down” on their mortgages, meaning that they owed more debt than the house was worth. In this case, forbearance doesn’t really help. If your debt is too high, you can never pay it off.

In the bad old days, debtors’ prisons were common. Basically, if your debts exceeded your ability to pay, the government would imprison you. How the heck could someone ever get out of a debtors’ prison? In some cases, the debtor’s family would pay the debt. In other cases, the debtor became an indentured servant until they worked off their debt.

But Jesus says that we are to proclaim forgiveness, not forbearance. The word used means a total sending away of the debt. We don’t have to work it off. The debt doesn’t remain hanging over us. We are totally relieved of our debt to God. That’s great, because the debt of our sins is like an upside-down mortgage. God has been so good to us, but like the grumbling Israelites, we reject God’s goodness. We can never earn our way back into God’s heart. We must rely on forgiveness through God’s grace.

In a sense, God’s forgiveness is like a presidential pardon. In the waning days of a presidency, the outgoing president usually issues a bunch of pardons. The Constitution gives a president almost unlimited authority to forgive federal crimes. Presidential pardons are often controversial, but there is really nothing people can do except grumble. Early this year, there was some discussion about whether President Trump would issue “pre-emptive pardons,” that is, pardons for unspecified violations. This turned out to be the only real limit. A presidential pardon must be specific. It must address a particular crime.

In a similar way, Jesus teaches his disciples to preach “repentance and forgiveness.” Our sins create a barrier between us and God. They block our ability to receive God’s love. They burden us with guilt and leave us feeling unworthy. Repentance is an honest acknowledgement of our sins, an accounting of our debt. Think about the person in an upside-down mortgage. If they simply ignore the debt, they will live in perpetual fear that the bank will take their home away. But if they make an honest accounting of the debt and the bank forgives it, they can live in freedom.

Jesus taught his disciples that repentance leads to forgiveness leads to freedom. When we are freed of our debt to God, we are free to be in a deeper relationship with God. I am reminded of a scene in A Bronx Tale. The main character loaned money to someone who didn’t want to pay him back. Instead, the guy kept dodging him. If you have an outstanding debt to a friend, it hangs over the relationship and prevents you from enjoying each other’s presence. In the same way, if sin hangs over our relationship with God, we cannot enjoy God’s full presence in our lives. If instead we turn towards God and accept God’s forgiveness, we unlock the joy that God offers us.

The disciples heard this good news and responded with joy, worship, and fellowship. Verse 52, “And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” Their heartache at the loss of their friend and teacher was replaced by the joy of God’s grace. They had encountered Jesus together. The encounter broke down not only the barriers between each of them and God, but also between one disciple and another.

In the same way, we each have experienced God’s grace. I have not personally had a vision of Jesus or an outpouring of the Holy Spirit like some people have, but I have had experiences of God acting in my life, times when I had an awareness that God is good, God is real, and God is still working to reconcile the world. Even if you haven’t had a direct encounter with God, you are a recipient of God’s grace and can encounter Jesus through the Bible. My God-encounters have been few and far between, but I encounter God vicariously each time I read the Bible. I read this story and imagine being a disciple, seeing Jesus’s hands, his flesh that was pierced at his crucifixion, raised in blessing. I read about Abraham or David and imagine a life of faithful devotion to the Lord’s guidance. I read Paul’s letters and imagine myself in one of those early house churches, squabbling with my fellow “baby Christians” and receiving Paul’s teaching that reveals God’s will. We are the recipients not only of God’s continuing presence, but also of thousands of years of stories about God’s work in the world.

Jesus opened his disciples’ minds to the entire Hebrew scripture—Torah, prophets, and psalms—so they could see that God’s work was all of one piece. In Genesis, we read of our expulsion from Eden and subsequent decline into depravity. Then Noah comes along and is a righteous man that God makes a personal covenant with. Then Abraham comes along, and God makes a permanent covenant to bless all humanity. From then on, we read of cycles of progressive redemption. The Israelites sin, God forgives them, and the bounds of the covenant expand.

God is eternally seeking reconciliation with all people and indeed all creation through Jesus Christ. The story of salvation reached a climax with Jesus’s death and resurrection. In Jesus’s ascension, his transcendent grace exploded upon the world and was suddenly open to everyone.

Let’s share that message with the world. There are plenty of preachers telling the world that they are sinners, that they have a debt to God, that, in Calvin’s words, they are “totally depraved.” They preach a debtors’ prison model: you owe a debt to God, and you cannot come to God until you work it off. Jesus taught us that yes, we are sinners, BUT, our debt has been forgiven. The slate has been wiped clean. We are free to enter the kingdom of God, not because of anything we have done, but despite anything we may have done.

This is good news, the very best news. Through grace, we are forgiven. Jesus has removed all barriers between humanity and God. We encounter God’s grace, abounding love, and forgiveness each time we read the Bible or gather together in our Lord’s name. We have been touched by the Holy Spirit, who has reconciled us to God and restored us to full membership in God’s kingdom. And if we are reconciled to God, we are free to be reconciled to one another. Just as God has removed the crushing burden of our sins, we are commanded to show others how their burdens may be lifted, to share the peace that comes from a right relationship with God. Then we may enter into fuller, deeper relationships with each other, forgiving as we have been forgiven, loving as we are loved, and sharing the deep joy of being a part of God’s family. Let us follow the disciples’ lead and go forth in joy, proclaiming forgiveness by the grace of God. Amen.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

March 20, 2021March 20, 2021

Crucifixion and Glory – Podcast and Transcript

See also the post with the video. Based on John 12:20-33.

Every year when I go elk hunting, I disconnect from all email and voicemail for about a week. Last fall when I checked my messages, I discovered that I had missed a message from Mark, an engineer at Ameren’s Technology Applications Center in Champaign who was working with me on my electric vehicle charging project. His message said that he was leaving Ameren that Friday, with some vague reference to church; of course, I didn’t get the message until the weekend, which was too late to get in touch with him for more details.

Later, I had the opportunity to talk with his former supervisor, Rod, and asked what Mark was up to. Mark had decided to commit himself to a project in Africa. He is visiting a tribe with a language that does not exist in written form. What he is doing is recording people telling Bible stories in their language, which he can then distribute to other groups who speak the same language. In this way, even though written Bibles are not available, the African tribespeople can still hear the Gospel.

Rod and I talked about Mark’s commitment. We are both committed to our respective churches; I shared a bit about the Commissioned Ruling Elder program that I’m working through. But we both agreed that it would hard for us to do what Mark is doing. Kids in college, family to care for, and good jobs that are hard to walk away from. We both admire Mark, but are not yet ready to take that leap.

In today’s passage, we hear about a group of believers who, like the Africans that Mark is evangelizing, needed to hear the Gospel in their own language. At that time, there were Greeks who were referred to as “God-fearers.” I suppose a reasonable analogy in modern Christianity would be unbaptized worshippers. God-fearing Greeks could go to the Temple in the Court of the Gentiles and offer sacrifices, but they could not participate as fully as circumcised Jews. While Greeks were the dominant group in much of the Roman Empire, they were outsiders in Judea. They had come to worship God during the Passover festival. Apparently when they arrived, they heard about Jesus. This passage comes just after his triumphal entry on what we celebrate as Palm Sunday. Maybe they had also heard about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus was the big news in town, so they sought to encounter Jesus.

So they did what most people do: they found someone who spoke their language and knew their customs who could make the introduction. Philip had a Greek name and was one of Jesus’s closest disciples, so he was the perfect choice. When he and his hometown friend Andrew approached Jesus, Jesus realized that the time had come. He was not only drawing Jews to himself, but Greeks as well, and would soon draw all things to himself and reconcile the world.

Yet Jesus knew that life would not be easy, not for himself and not for his followers. He knew his own death was approaching and faced it with courage. But he also needed to warn his followers that if they chose his path, they would need to cast aside all of their other attachments. They—and we—would need to even hate their lives, that is, all the comforts of ordinary life.

Throughout history, and even today in some parts of the world, suffering for the Gospel includes paying the ultimate price of martyrdom. Early Christians were martyred; many schisms in church history have included martyrs. I read a story recently about Assyrian Christians, an ethnic minority in northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. These are the same Assyrians we know from the Bible. They converted to Christianity in the first few centuries A.D. In the centuries since, they have been persecuted, even subjected to a genocide around World War I. Most recently, their population was decimated by ISIS. They remain a dwindling minority in the Middle East, with a small number living elsewhere around the world.

Meanwhile, in Myanmar, we hear mostly about the ruling Buddhists persecuting Rohingya Muslims, but the army has also imprisoned over 100,000 Christians in concentration camps. I met a pastor from Myanmar who was studying at Eden Seminary. He said that there were times when the army surrounded his church to prevent him from preaching something subversive, and he had to pivot to a sermon that supported the military dictatorship. He has since completed his studies and returned home, where he continues to lead his church despite the threats.

But we are not Assyrians, nor do we live in Myanmar. We live in a democracy where religious freedom is guaranteed. The so-called threats against our faith include such terrible things as not being allowed to lead communal prayer in public schools, or being forced to sell wedding cakes to gay couples.

Yet it is still true that Christians suffer in more subtle ways, or else compromise their faith. Many of us are fearful about sharing our faith in any public way, for fear of reprisal from our superiors at work or loss of friends. I know I need to be particularly careful on campus because of my position of authority. There can never be an implication that students are expected to profess what I believe in order to succeed in my class. I work with people of all different faiths—every sort of Christian, plus Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, and more—and our different beliefs can’t prevent us from working together.

For generations, we have been taught that it is impolite to discuss religion or politics. I understand that, to a certain point. The problem is that we have failed to learn how to politely discuss these sensitive issues. These are the things that really matter, that really touch who we are, and we never talk about them. Even among my friends at church, these last few years have been pretty hard on political conversations.

As a result, we end up discussing surface-level topics. We talk about the weather; we talk about sports. These days, we talk about COVID. I have a lot of conversations about my beard and about hunting. Such small talk smooths out our interpersonal interactions, but we never reach true understanding of each other. Just as the interstate highway system is a way to cross the country without seeing any of it, small talk is a way to talk at length with someone without knowing who they really are.

For the last few years, I have been active with the Campus Ministries Association. CMA includes Common Call, which is this church’s ministry, plus CCF, the Newman Center, Baptist Student Union, the First Methodist ministry called Ignite, and a few others. CMA’s flagship event is an Interfaith Dialogue every spring. Last year, of course it got canceled, and this year we have to pivot the format a bit, but here’s how it goes in a normal year. We try to get people to attend from a wide range of faith traditions: Christians of many types, from within our ministries and also from across campus, plus Muslims, Hindus, and whoever else we can think of. We mix them up at tables of six with a facilitator at each table. Then each group goes through questions like, “Have you ever been asked to do or say something that went against your faith or belief system? How did you respond?” Or, “How do you understand evil in persons and in our world? What do you think is the best way to deal with evil?” There are about twenty different questions, and none of them have a right answer. Most of them don’t even have an “approved” doctrinal answer. They are more about the practical realities of our spirituality. How does our religion or our spirituality impact our daily life? We are all trying to figure things out and live our faith as best we can.

The two keys to a successful interfaith dialogue are a willingness to share and a willingness to listen. The goal is to understand each other, not to win a debate. I have found that I have more in common with a Muslim than I ever imagined. We may all leave believing the same things as when we arrive, but we also leave with a memory of an experience of the Kingdom of God.

Because really, what is the kingdom of God? It is people living together in deep relationships. It is abundant life, not a life of abundance. It is seeing Jesus in each other. It is being guided by the Holy Spirit. It is setting aside our fears and anxieties and showing our true selves.

That is what Jesus is calling us to do. He asks us to set our lives aside—our false selves—and pursue Him and His Kingdom. That is not an easy road, but it leads us to a place of joy and peace.

Some people are called to literally set their lives aside, as Mark did to travel to Africa. Others find ways to live for Christ where they already are. Rev. Dr. Maria Evans is a pathologist in Kirksville who felt called to the priesthood a few years ago, and so is serving as the interim priest at Christ Episcopal here in Rolla. She continues in her practice as a pathologist while at the same time serving God through pastoral ministry. Rev. Steve Lawler, on the other hand, is a semi-retired Episcopal priest with an MBA who is the director of the Walker Leadership Institute at Eden Seminary. His goal is to help people who have had successful careers, who are perhaps at or near retirement, find ways to use their career skills to serve God through missional leadership, meaning leadership of organizations that are serving some specific mission towards establishing God’s kingdom. James Brown is a sportscaster, best known for being the host of the NFL Today on CBS, who is also ordained in a nondenominational church. He doesn’t preach much on TV, but he does radiate God’s love, and he’s not afraid to bring his faith into the discussion when it’s appropriate.

Maybe you’re not ready to become a preacher, ordained or otherwise. We are all differently gifted. Some are led to preach or teach, others to healing and compassion, others to a wide range of service to God’s Kingdom. But we all share one calling: to be witnesses of God’s grace at work in the world. We are all called to encounter God, to see God in all things, and to share with others how great is God’s love—for each one of us, and for everyone else, too. God’s love is greater than anything else any of us ever have or ever will experience. As followers of Christ, we should treasure that love above all else. It is a great gift, one that gets bigger the more we give it away.

Sharing God’s love means sharing our deepest joy, but sometimes means touching another person’s deepest pain. That pain can lead the person to lash out at us, as a proxy for the angry or spiteful or judgmental God they think they know. But if we’re willing to suffer through that pain, we have the promise of glory on the other side: the glory of entering God’s kingdom here and now, as God’s beloved children become our siblings in Christ.

Truly, that is the promise of the Gospel. Following Jesus isn’t easy. It is frequently a path to poverty, or to persecution, or to ostracism. But it is also a path to deeper, truer relationships. We go beyond the surface to those issues that touch our hearts. We connect to people we would otherwise never know. Let us each seek to set God’s priorities above our own, to open our true selves to our neighbors, and in so doing to experience the joy of God’s beloved community. Amen.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

March 20, 2021March 20, 2021

Crucifixion and Glory – Worship Video

Bulletin-2021-03-21 Download

I haven’t blogged much recently. Among other things, I have been busy with the course on preaching that I’m taking this semester. If you would like to provide anonymous feedback on the sermon, please visit: https://forms.gle/eEUkkFJmwzGCAGq98