THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JIMMY

Sermon Summary from April 10: “Gospel According to Jimmy” (Read James Chapter 1)

I’ve often wondered what it would have been like growing up in the same house with Jesus.  Precocious, right?  Do you suppose he tried out his ideas on James whether James liked it or not?  Pretty obvious Jesus didn’t convince his brother Jimmy who it sounds like came with his mother one time to “take him away.”  But, but, Paul tells us that the Risen Christ appeared to James and changed his life.  He was the leader of the mother church in Jerusalem from 36 ad until he was martyred in 62 ad.  Another who gave his life for the sake of the Resurrection.

James is a very practical book, a companion or sidekick to the Sermon on the Mount in many cases telling how we are to live out Jesus words.  Jesus talks about the “pure in heart.”  Jimmy tells us “religion that is pure and undefiled…” Jesus says, “Whoever hears these words of mine and does them. “  Jimmy says “Be doers of the word and not hearers only.”  It’s almost as if James places the role of conscience.

Another sidekick you may remember that played the role of conscience was not Jimmy but “Jiminy,” Jiminy Cricket.  “I’ll tell ya’ what conscience is, Pinocchio, it’s that still small voice that nobody listens to.  That’s the problem with the world today.”  Now we have “The Gospel According to Jiminy.”

The first phrase is a matter of conscience: James, slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ…  Our relationships dictate our behavior and our response to one another.  What if we took our relationship “as slave” to Jesus Christ personally?  What if?

James talks of trials leading to maturity.  Jesus of becoming perfect as our heavenly father is perfect.  We become spiritually mature by listening to the proddings of grace, of conscience.  James says to ask for wisdom instead of leaning on our own understanding.  A practical guide.

He talks of temptation.  We need conscience, Jiminy, to help us distinguish between right and wrong.  Interestingly, James tells us that generosity is the counterpoint to temptation.  When we succumb, it is out of self-interest.  Generosity leads us in another direction.

Most of all he tells us to be “Doers of the word and not hearers only.”  Wesley taught us to “First, do no harm; the do all the good you can.”  We need conscience to do both.  We need to listen, be hearers, yes; and we need to ask, “What good can I do today?”  Then be doers.

EASTER: BRIGHT HOPE FOR TOMORROW

Bright Hope For Tomorrow (John 20:1-18; , Ro 5:1-8; Lam 3:22-24) (3/27/16)

INTRO

He is Risen!  (He is Risen indeed!)  What an awesome greeting!  What a greeting of hope for us, the Easter people!  But it wasn’t always like that was it?  Even in our reading today, Mary Magdalene and the disciples began the morning without hope.  They didn’t start the day with hope.  They didn’t go to the tomb with hope.  And in John’s Gospel, seeing the empty tomb by itself did not give them hope.

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb..”  Mary went to the tomb without hope.  In Mark and Luke she goes to the tomb with the other women and they had spices to anoint the body.  Their expectation was that they were going to find the body of the crucified Jesus and they wanted to prepare it for burial.  They were without hope.

And our passage today says that Peter and John after seeing the empty tomb “returned to their homes.” They were without hope.  

That happens to us, too, doesn’t it?  We face our Fridays and it seems like Sunday never comes.  We are without hope.  I’ve told you before that Rosemary and I lost our son Jeff when he was 18.  It took a long time for Easter to come, years in fact.  It wasn’t until an encounter, not as dramatic as Mary’s in the garden, but an encounter none the less, that hope was restored, that Easter was a part of my life.  It was almost as if someone came running to me like Mary to the disciples and said, “I have seen the Lord,” that I can say that I became one of the Easter people. 

Hope, that’s what Easter people possess that the world is missing.  Hope!  And why?  We have received the message, “I have seen the Lord!” and we believe it.  Some of us have encountered the Risen Savior as surely as Paul did on the Road to Damascus.

So here’s the line for the kids.  The reason we gather here today on Easter is not eggs but because we are people of hope.  Regardless of how bad things might have been on Friday, skinned knees and hurt feelings, it's Sunday, it's Easter and Jesus is alive, and we have hope.  It gives us strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.  We gather on Easter because we are people of hope.

HOPE

This week I read an autobiography of a man named Brennan Manning.  A man who pretty much grew up without hope.  His mother had been raised in an orphanage without love and was incapable of showing love to Brennan as a child.  His father was an alcoholic and about all he could show him was his belt.  He as raised in the Catholic Church and went to Catholic schools. Even though his family was dysfunctional, his parents had to maintain appearances in their Irish Catholic neighborhood after all. 

By the time he was 16, he started drinking, and pretty heavily.  He had been a fairly good student.  The only hope he had was that if he kept up his grades, he could avoid the belt.  Not much hope, right?  He started college but dropped out when one of his drinking buddies suggested they enlist in the Marines.  They did so and served in Korea.

When he got out, the GI Bill would allow him to go to college just about anywhere he wanted to go.  His only dream had been to be a sports writer and he decided he’d go to Mizzou where even in the 50’s it had the reputation of being a great journalism school.

So he did.  Did I tell you that Brennan had no hope?  During his first semester, Brennan had a dream.  He dreamt that through his writing he had achieved everything, a wife, a family, a house, even the Nobel Prize for Literature.  But he was still empty.  He woke up saying, “There’s just got to be more.  More.”

As a result of that dream, this 21 year old sought out a spiritual director.  Maybe they had them back then, but I don’t know where you’d find a spiritual director today at Mizzou.  Nor do I know that many young men today that would look one up, but he did.  The spiritual director  posed a question to him.  “What if that ‘more’ was God?”

Brennan bit.  He left Mizzou after the first semester and enrolled in seminary.  That lasted a week.  Remember I told you he was a man without hope.  Hopeless people don’t have much direction and they don't take much direction.

He went to the Dean’s office at the end of the first week at noon to tell him he was dropping out.  The Dean wasn’t available right away so he wandered into the Chapel and walked around the walls of the room going through the Stations of the Cross.  He doesn’t recall much about stations one through eleven, but at station twelve he kneeled before the icon and something special happened as he read these words: “Station 12, Jesus Dies on the Cross.  Behold Jesus crucified!  Behold his wounds, received for love of you!  His whole appearance betokens love: His head is bent to kiss you; His arms are extended to embrace you; His heart is open to receive you.  O superabundance of love, Jesus, Son of God, dies upon the cross, that man may live and be delivered from everlasting death!”

It was a little afternoon when he kneeled before the icon.  It was 3:00 when he stood!  He had experienced the “more.”  He had experienced the unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ, wave after wave of unconditional love.  Jesus had called him by name.  He had encountered the Risen Lord and he would never be the same.  He had experienced grace and Brennan Manning had become a person of hope.  What he had found in that hope was that Jesus loved him, not only that, Jesus liked him, just as he was.

He became a man of hope, he completed seminary, became a priest, became a sought after evangelist and that was his message to people without hope: God loves you, not only loves you but likes you, just as you are.

By the way, the title of his autobiography was “All is grace: The memoirs of a ragamuffin.” 

Brennan Manning had encountered the Risen Christ, the Christ of Easter.  Not the Christ of Station 12 but the Christ of Easter morning and he became a man of hope.

GOD

Hope.  My favorite scripture about hope was written by another man who had encountered the Risen Lord, the Christ of Easter.  He was a writer too, of letters, and his name was Paul.  He writes in Romans 5 about grace and hope:
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³ More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.  ⁶ While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. ⁸ But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

“We rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”  Brennan was in demand as a speaker, writer, evangelist most of his life, “rejoicing in sharing the glory of God.”  But unfortunately, he suffered all of life with relapses of his alcoholism.  He suffered. 

And what does Paul tell us, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” Hope.  Even through our sufferings.  Today might feel like Friday, but Sunday’s a comin’.  Hope.

Why? because God’s love has been poured into us.  Brennan would write that Christianity is not some moral code.  It is a love affair, that God loves us.  And showed that love, that unlimited, unconditional love by dying on the cross for us.  “Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”

Paul tells us that just at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.  Then to note that he loves us just as we are, he notes, “Why one would hardly die for a righteous person—though perhaps one for a good person one might dare even to die.  But God showed his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jesus loves, even likes us, and showed that love for us by dying for us just as we are. 

And God through the resurrection, through Easter, gives us hope.

And here’s my part for the kids.  It is the resurrection of Jesus that gives us hope.  We can squeeze our purse and can see just as the tomb could not hold Jesus on Easter morning, that our purse cannot hold the cross, the symbol of Jesus.  And that is a reminder of the hope we have on Sunday morning.

My friends, you are Easter People.  You are resurrection people.  You have encountered the living Lord in one way or another as surely as Mary in the Garden, or Brennan in his golden three hours.  And your life is different than people without hope.  Someone has come running to you saying, “I have seen the Lord.” The question becomes, what are you going to do with your hope? Paul put it this way, “And we rejoice in the hope of sharing the glory of God.”

We are blessed with hope.  A blessing is the promise of a future.  The promise of a future that too is hope. 

How will you use your hope to be a blessing to others?  Do you know that this is hope? (hold up glass of water)  One out of every ten people on our planet are without safe drinking water.  Eighty percent of the illness, 50 percent of the hospitalizations around the world are due to lack of safe water.  You can give a family hope, hope, safe drinking water for 10 years for only $10.  Did I wet your appetite?  (Pun intended).  More information in the entry way, or talk to me after the service.

How else might you be a blessing?  Give others hope?  I attended a meeting two weeks ago called the Haiti Summit.  It gathered people from around Missouri who were interested in providing hope for the people of Haiti who are still suffering from the 2010 earthquake. 

One woman, a church member from Sedalia, said that three years ago she felt a call on her life and told her pastor she thought it had to do with orphans.  It was as if someone had come running to her and said, “I have seen the Lord.”  And she felt called to use the hope that was in her to be a blessing to orphan children.

Now, I want you to listen to the geography of this.  Her pastor said OK, and sent her to Rick Warren’s church in California where a man told that he knew a Baptist minister Maine who was working with an Orphanage in Haiti.  That’s Sedalia, California, Maine, Haiti.  Lauri has been working with them, going to Haiti four times a year, raising funds, developing programs for Strong Tower Orphanage for the past three years. Listen to this: “Strong Tower is an integral part of the ministry and community of Church of the Redeemer in Caracol, Haiti.  Within the faith community, the children served by Strong Tower live in family settings and receive physical care, education, and experience the love and grace of Jesus Christ.

Folks that’s hope.  These are things kids might be interested too.  Giving children a clean glass of water when they have none.  Kids, what if your Mom said, “We have no water.  If you want a drink today, you’ll have to get it from that mud puddle out by the road, but look out for the pollywogs.”  And wouldn’t you like to make sure this little girl at the orphanage had clean water too?  Hope.

As people of hope, I would urge each of you to determine how you can be hope, a blessing to someone else.  It might be small.  Ten dollars for a water filter.  It might be a gift that puts a disadvantaged girl from Fulton on a horse at CrossWind ranch, let’s her experience a world that she didn’t know existed and provide her hope.  It might be supporting the education system in Fulton.  It might be responding to the Shriner’s Hospital Ads on TV and truly give hope to children and their mothers and fathers that otherwise might have no hope, no promise of a future at all.  All they can envision is suffering and you can give them hope.  You are the Easter people.

Here’s one that costs you nothing. What if you have an old sewing machine around the house that hasn't been used in years. Give it to Mel West. He’ll have it refurbished and sent to a family who can start a sewing business and give them hope for generations to come.  Hope.

This is what I ask for this Easter: Find a way to intentionally giving your hope away.

CLOSE

One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament is the story of a man who had no hope.  But in the midst of his sorrow, and seen from our side of Easter, it’s almost as if Mary Magdalene in the midst of his suffering had come to him shouting down the centuries, “I have seen the Lord.”

It's a passage from Jeremiah’s book of Lamentations.  Here’s the context: Nebuchadnezzar has destroyed Jerusalem, as Jesus said, “Not one stone left upon another.”  The children of Israel have been taken into exile in Babylon and only Jeremiah and a few token vine tenders remain.  Jeremiah walks through the ruins of Jerusalem and laments.  I can picture him sitting on an ash heap in deep sorrow and suffering.

Lamentations is a dark, dark book.  It is a Good Friday book where is no hope.  Here are the topical sentences leading my passage: “I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath.”  “He has made my flesh and my skin waste away.”  “He has walled me about so that I cannot escape.”  “He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding.”  “He shot into my vitals the arrows of his quiver.”  “He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes.”  They don’t call it Lamentations for nothing.

Then it’s as if Mary comes running to him.  It’s as if he can hear the words of Paul rushing back through the centuries saying, “And we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope; and hope will never disappoint us.”  It’s as if some great preacher is saying, “It may be Friday, but Sunday’s a comin’.”  This is what Jeremiah says sitting on this ash heap in the sorrow of Friday:  He says, “But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.”  (Hope! Hope!  That’s what we have as Easter People.)  He goes on: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. (And then he says as surely as Brennan talks about his love affair with Jesus.) ‘The Lord is my portion’ says my soul.  Therefore I will trust in him.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases (love, for God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.)  His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.  Great is thy faithfulness.

In 1923, Thomas Chisholm wrote a poem from this passage that became one of the great hymns of the church primarily because it became a favorite of Billy Graham’s.  The third verse could have been my passage for today’s sermon.  In fact you could say that it was:  “Pardon for sin and peace that endureth (God loves you unconditionally, just as you are) thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide; (presence, the encounter each of has in our own way with the Risen Lord) Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.  Blessings all mine and ten thousand besides.” 

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. This is the promise of Easter: Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.  Blessings all mine with what? Ten thousand beside.”

We are Easter People, God’s strength, God’s hope, God’s mercies, Gods’ blessings are new every morning.

You are the Easter People, you have hope, you have blessings to give away.  Let’s rise and sing hymn number 140, this amazing hymn of hope, “Great is thy Faithfulness.”

PALM SUNDAY: CHRIST DIED FOR ME

Christ Died for Me (Condensed) (Luke 18:31-34; 23:33a) (3/20/16)

As an adult returning to the faith, one of my first questions of my pastor was, “Why did Jesus have to die?”  Why did Jesus have to die?  I mean, this was God.  Why couldn’t he have come to earth, looked around, declared our salvation and go back to heaven?

How about you?  As Christians we believe that Jesus died on the cross.  We all say he died to save us, but how does that work?  We’d all like a pat answer.  We want to know the formula.  I’m not sure there is a formula, something as simple as two plus two.  More than likely it is a drama, a metaphor, a story.  We need a story to understand.

So when I asked my pastor Frank why did Jesus have to die, he gave me a story to read.  I can’t remember the book, I can’t remember the author, but remember the story:
“This young couple, madly in love, married.  But unfortunately, three or four years into their marriage the wife was unfaithful, had an affair which she grievously regretted.  It tore her apart.  Just looking at her faithful, loving husband filled her with guilt and regret and destroyed her relationship with him.  All he the husband knew to do was to try to love her all the more.  He longed for the relationship they had once known but it seemed never to be.  Twenty years passed by.  The guilt and the broken relationship remained.  On spring in the garden, the two were on their knees preparing the flower bed and he looked at her in love and said, “I forgive you.”  She lashed out at him and said, “How dare you forgive me.  You have no right to forgive me!”

What we are talking about here is our strong desire for atonement, reconciliation with God.  At-one-ment.  We want our relationship with God restored, the relationship between God and sinful humanity

Incarnational Theory of Atonement

So, let’s start with my story.  “How dare you forgive me.  You have no right to forgive me.” 

Unless you have walked in my shoes, experienced my grievous guilt, your words alone cannot reconcile us.

Jesus came and lived among us, experienced our temptations, lived as we lived, vicariously shared our experiences, and then took to the cross all of the sins and guilt of sinful humanity so that in his humanity he could experience the grievous guilt of us all.  Because he shared our sin, shared our guilt, he has the right to forgive us, to reconcile the broken relationship with us.

This is called the incarnational theory of atonement.  It is not just a formula, it is poetry, an emotional drama played on the cross that explains why we are separated from God, why God had to become like us in order to save us, why he had to suffer to bring us back into relationship with him.

The incarnational theory of atonement.  There are a dozen such theories all giving us a little different picture of the drama that we call salvation theory.  Some work for us, some don’t.  Some find us right where we are.  In other cases, we need a different story, a different drama.

Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement

That was the incarnational theory.  A second one.  The most popular is the “Penal Substitution Theory.”  Christ substituted himself to pay our penalty.  Humanity’s sin has cause a great gulf between us and God.  Because God is perfect and we are not, because God is holy and we are not, there is a gulf between us that cannot be bridged.  And without that gulf being bridged, we will experience God’s wrath.  Because we are sinful, we deserve punishment.  There is nothing we can do ourselves to avoid God’s wrath.  Try as we may, we fall short and are judged.  Jesus took our place, took the punishment for us all, took it to the cross, and in so doing bridged the gap between us and God. We have received God’s just punishment through Jesus’ substitution, and we can be reconciled with him.

Like all metaphors, all stories it breaks down.

Here’s where it breaks down for me.  It portrays a wrathful God.  While there is judgment in the New Testament, it doesn’t seem to portray the loving, forgiving God that Jesus describes.  It doesn’t tell of the seeking God of the lost sheep, the searching God of the lost coin, the longing God of the Prodigal Son who celebrates when reconciliation takes place.  It doesn't sound like good news at all. It doesn't seem to portray grace.

If it works for you fine.  If parts of it work for you fine.  If it doesn’t, set it aside or combine it with another story. I think the next two will be helpful.

The Perfect Penitent Theory of Atonement

The next is from CS Lewis called “The Perfect Penitent.”  (See Mere Christianity pg 44 for a full explanation)

Lewis emphasized that we may not need to fully understand how God through Jesus Christ has reconciled us to him, but it does work.  I does work, we just need to know the outcome.  Here it is: “Christ was killed for us.  Somehow his death has washed away our sins, and by dying, he has disabled death itself.”

He starts out by saying we are not just sinful, we are rebels.  It is our nature to rebel against God.  As an army in rebellion, we must surrender, submit, lay down our arms.  But not only that, we must repent, turn around, eat humble pie, kill the rebellious part of ourselves, our sinful nature.  That’s hard.  Army in rebellion, surrender, repentance, killing our sinful nature. That’s hard.

If it were easy, we could do it ourselves.  But if it were easy to do, we probably wouldn’t be in this fix in the first place.

Here’s the predicament that Lewis proposes: Only a bad person needs to repent; but only a good person can repent perfectly.  That same badness that make us need repentance, turning back to God, keeps us from being able to do so.

We need a perfect penitent.  But only God is perfect.  But since God is perfect, he has never needed to repent.  Repentance is not in God’s nature.  There’s nothing in God’s nature that tells him to surrender, to submit, to suffer, to die to self.  God could never be the perfect penitent.

But, suppose God became man, he could help us.  And because he was the perfect man, he could be the perfect penitent.  He could surrender, he could submit, he could die to self, he could repent perfectly because he was also God.

That is the picture.  Lewis is quick to point out that it is only a picture, it is not the real thing.  The real thing is that “Christ was killed for us.  That his death has washed away our sins, and that by dying Christ has disabled death itself.” 

The Moral Theory of Atonement

That with the moral drama of the cross, that God is trying to change your heart.  Because you witness the drama, you are part of the story and therefore become a changed person. 

In getting ready for today, I bumped into a story of an amazing man, a man named Brennan.  He was not always an amazing man.  In fact, his name was not always Brennan, it was Richard and he was part of sinful humanity.

Born in Brooklyn in the 30s, he spent two years attending St. John’s University, dropped out, joined the Marines and was serving in the Korean War.  While in a foxhole in a lull of battle, he and his best friend were sharing a candy bar, a grenade rolled into the foxhole and his best friend without hesitation rolled onto the grenade.  Instantly horrified, he looked at his friend as his friend turned his head toward Richard and winked.  Then it was over.  His best friend was dead, killed and he was alive. Richard came home from Korea and changed his name from Richard to Brennan, the last name of his best friend.  He was a changed person. The life, death and sacrifice, the moral drama of his best friend had changed him.

In a way, that’s what happens to us isn’t it?  It is the moral life of Jesus that changes us, the sacrifice of our best friend, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” that loves us and gave his life for us, who told us “No greater love than this than to lay down one’s life for a friend.”  And when we see that, we change our name too, to Christian.

The Moral theory of Atonement that the moral life of Christ including that of laying down his life for all of us changes us.

There other theories and they may be helpful: Jesus as the Passover Lamb who saves us as the blood of the lamb did for the Children of Israel; Christ the Victor who took on all the forces of darkness including evil itself.  Just when it appears as though evil has won on the cross, God overcomes death.  “O death where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”  Christ the Victor.  “New Covenant Theory”  “This is my blood of the New Covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” 

All of it drama, poetry a love story.  When it fits, use it.  Where it doesn’t, set it aside.  What matters is the outcome: “Christ was killed for us; and somehow his death has washed away our sins, and by dying, he has disabled death itself.

God has done so through His mighty acts in Jesus Christ “who loved us and gave his life for us.”

Jesus came to experience life, to vicariously take all of our sins, all of our suffering, all the guilt, all of our pain to reconcile us to God.  In the same way he lifts our sins from us, our grievous guilt from us, so that a man and a women on their knees in a flower bed can be reconciled and experience love again.

One last thing, the cross, the cross Rick, why the cross?  The extreme cruelty of the cross?  Yes, I understand that Jesus died for me, by why the incredible cruelty of the cross?

I can only describe it one way: God chose the cross to show that there was no length, there was no limit that God would not go to, to show his love for us.  He would put on display all of his Power, his unlimited love, to save us. There is no lengths to how far go would go to show us his love. Paul tells us, “The message of the cross is foolishness for those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The incredible power of God’s love.

It is the love of God, the unfathomable love of God that he would enter this world to demonstrate his unlimited love for us.

There is one last part of the story, of this drama. And that is no one asked Jesus to die for us. No one asked Jesus to enter Jerusalem this day knowing that his destination was the cross.  It is a pure act of grace. Grace. We not only did not ask Jesus to die for us, we did not deserve it. “You were saved by faith through grace,” each and every one of you. It is not something you did.  You are incapable of saving yourself. You received salvation by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ was killed for you; he has washed away your sins; he has overcome death itself.  Grace.  Here’s what you must do: Trust that it is so.  That is faith.  Amen.

MAKE AMERICA GOOD AGAIN

Sermon Summary, Mar 13, 2016, “Make America Good Again”

We’re finishing our series on where faith and politics meet; not to take sides, Jesus didn’t come to take sides, he came to take over!  What do we mean by “Make America Good Again”?  Alexis de Tocqueville aptly said, “America is great because she is good, but if she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

We believe we are a good nation, but a quick read of the paper will show we make many opportunities to be good again: Our schools are leaving too many children behind; we are too good with our prisons; not so good with families with over 40 percent of our children born out of wedlock destining too many to a life of poverty.  We are not so good with basic needs: Water with lead extends far beyond Flint, MI; nutritional food is too expensive; our Veterans need care; we have too many homeless including whole families.  And the list goes on: abuse, perversion, drugs.  We have lots of opportunities to be good again.

And we have had visionary leaders who have called us to be good.  JFK asking “not what our country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”  Asking what we can do to make our country good again.  Reagan calling us to “be a bright, shiny city on a hill.”  Asking us to be good again so that we can be a beacon to the nations.

Of course Reagan was not the first to call us to be a city on a hill, Kennedy did so as President-Elect and added another biblical injunction “For those for whom much has been given, much is required.” (Lk 12:48)  And we know that it was from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, that we are called to be salt (to be good) to be that city, to let our light shine, so that our good works can be seen.  We are called to be good. Jesus used the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount to tell us what was required from relationships, to family to praying for others, loving our enemies and ends with the Golden Rule. Others are important if we are to be good.

And what did Jesus’ Bible (the OT) say? In hundreds of places we are called to be just, to do lovingkindness, to be righteous (ie to be fair, to actively pursue compassion and mercy, to do the right thing). To be good, a vision of good for leaders and people.

Teddy Roosevelt was our most popular President.  His father taught him to view the world in terms of right and wrong and to always view himself as being on the side of right.  When his father died, he pledged to live his life as his father would have wanted him.  He fought corruption and unfairness and demonstrated compassion at every level. He held two press conferences a day to keep his vision in front of the American people.

When you cast our ballot this year, seek out a visionary that you believe can unleash America to be good again.

CHRISTIANITY AND ISIS

Sermon Summary, March 6, 2016, “Christianity and ISIS”

(To get a full appreciation for the complexity of the issue, I highly recommend that you watch the forum on ISIS at https://vimeo.com/152643273.  It is essential to our role as Christian witnesses) Some sermon points:

Each religion has fundamentalists, for Islam those who interpret the Quran in 7th century terms.  Among the fundamentalists are extremists like ISIS who think those who do not believe as they do, deserve to live.  They are a threat to other Muslims as well as us, and to civilization.  They are “apocalyptic,” seeking to bring the final, end-time battle at Dubiq, a village in northern Syria (as well as the name of their magazine, “Dubiq”).

The world has 1.5 billion Muslims.  Only a few are our enemy.  Our Muslim neighbors are always going to be with us, and we must learn to live with them.  In fact, it will be impossible to prosecute a battle against extreme Islam without the help of Sunni Muslim nations.  We cannot fight, we cannot occupy, we cannot defeat radical Islam without them.  We need them.  Yet all of the players in the Middle East have security interests and conflicts (e.g. Sunni-Shia) that seem to supersede their desire to fight ISIS.  At this point, there is no coalition of the willing.  Somehow we need to change that.

The battle being waged by ISIS is primarily a “Narrative War.”  With a single beheading they outrage a world.  With two fighters they kill 14 in San Bernardino and terrorize a nation.  With eight fighters in Paris they kill 130 and still keep all of France under military emergency.  And they use “Narrative” against us.  We say, “No Muslim immigration.”  The say, “See how they hate us.”  We say, “No Muslim refugees.”  They say, “See how they hate us.”  We find it impossible to provide relief to starving villages.  They say, “See they do not care.” We need to overcome their story.

Paul wrote to a small group in Rome telling them “¹⁷ Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. ¹⁸ If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹ Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰ To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  (Romans 12:17-21)

By doing “good,” we enter the Narrative War.  We begin by loving our Muslim neighbors here; and with caring for refugees and oppressed there.  With good, we convince the Sunni nations we have their best interests at heart.  We collectively destroy the ISIS Caliphate, the rallying flag for extreme Islam; then with good, with Christian witness, we do overcome evil. 

THE BIBLE AND IMMIGRATION

Sermon Summary, Feb 28, 2016, “The Bible and Immigration”

I thought with my South Dakota upbringing, I never knew any immigrants, but the polka music on the radio belied that.  When I met Rosemary’s Dad, I found he was a refugee who escaped Bessarabia ahead of the Bolshevik Revolution.  My Granddad and family came illegally through Canada to Wisconsin when he was three.  When you see Rosemary and Rick you see a family from the stock of a refugee from Bessarabia and an illegal immigrant from Norway.  We are the American experience.

We are a nation of immigrants from Europe in the 1700s, Ireland who built our sewers and canals and Chinese who built our railroads in the 1800s.  We feared the Roman Catholic faith of the Irish and the “Yellow Peril” of the Chinese even resulting in our first significant immigrant legislation, “The Chinese Exclusion Act” of 1882.  Refugees following WWI resulted in the next law of 1924 limiting quotas to the balance we had in 1890.  Finally, in 1965 we excluded race from our laws, and we’ve been operating primarily under that law ever since.

Each wave of immigrants have caused fears, but equally, the flight to America was driven by fear.  What mother would put her child on top of a train in Guatemala never to see him again?  Fear.

The speaks much to immigration because the biblical narrative is one of immigration.  We didn’t stay long in Eden.  The Abraham saga was one of immigration that consumed the whole of the Old Testament, so much so that God gave special instructions for the alien among them: ³⁴ The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.  (Lev 19:34) and Jesus in the judgment of the nations says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Mt 25:35b)

We have a new definition of neighbor, the alien among us.  “Welcomed” is a verb as love is a verb.  Like the Golden Rule, Jesus called this the sum of the all the law.  How are we doing? This week an Indiana man attacked a Chinese High School exchange student with an axe!  An act of “ethnic cleansing”!

We need to find the Sweet Spot, the balance of reasonable security and compassion so we can love our neighbor.  This I know: We will never completely seal the borders, we will never forcefully deport 12 million people, we will never have total amnesty, we will never pass a law that satisfies everyone or maybe even anyone.  We need a President and lawmakers who will work together to find a compassionate compromise.

We have aliens in our midst, many brought here as infants, who want to be part of and contribute to our society.  We need to search for a compassionate way to allow them to do so.

(This is another sermon for which a summary does little justice.  In the end, I told a story of a young Mexican man who had worked for me (my best and most positive employee) and who is currently in Minnesota.  Alberto had a dream to go back to Mexico, marry and bring his family to America.  I found pictures on facebook of him and his 11 year old son, a saxophone player and athlete.  We need to find ways for families like this.  Amazingly, after not talking to him for 12 years, he called on Sunday night and I had a video conversation with both he and his son!  God was definitely at work last Sunday!  PS. I had always thought him legal as did my employment agency, but what he had was great forgeries.  I'm glad I had the opportunity to be part of his life.)

THE SWEET SPOT

Sermon Summary, Feb 21, 2016, “The Sweet Spot”

(Feb 14 was a snow day)  This was to have been a Valentine’s Day sermon, “Sweet Spot”; but it’s more closely related to baseball (pitchers and catchers reported to spring training this week).  Anybody who’s played knows the great feeling of hitting the ball on the sweet spot.  That’s the spot where all the energy is transmitted to the ball. We’re also in the political season, “Where Faith and Politics Meet.”  Wouldn’t it be great if instead of political vibration we cold be transferring the maximum amount of energy to the governing process?  Wouldn’t it be great?

We need to strive for balance.  We used to have moderates.  Now even Republicans and Democrats are calling themselves Conservatives and Liberals.  CK Chesterson said, “Liberals exist to make mistakes, and conservatives to make sure mistakes are never corrected.”  Tony Campollo better said, “Liberals and conservatives need each other: Conservatives maintain lines that should never be crossed, while liberals destroy many lines that should never have existed.”

Faith has had liberals and conservatives from the beginning.  Israel just passed a law allowing woman to pray at the West Wall with men (a line that should have never existed); Muslims have conservatives interpreting the Quran as it was written in the seventh century while moderates claim the violence only applied to Mohammed’s wars.  There may never be a resolution.  Paul struck a sweet spot, a middle ground, “the whole law is summed up in a singly commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Gal 5:14) Then nailed it with the fruit of the Spirit. (Gal 5:22) Wouldn’t you like your politicians to exercise a little kindness or self-control?

We defined our political process as “Who gets what, when and how.”  Who and what we learn from the stories and teachings of Jesus.  Where and how is part of how we use our vote.

In this political season I challenge you to search out five of the top issues, research the who and the what from Scripture.  Then using Tradition, Experience (prayer and nudgings of the Spirit) and reason to conclude the how.  Examine to positions of two or three candidates, including a polar opposite before you decide to cast your vote.  And remember, we are selecting the leader of the free world for reasons we cannot foresee.  When it happens, we are electing him or her to hit the ball on the sweet spot.

Martin Luther King in using the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-27) said the Priest and the Levite responded from fear asking “What will happen to me?” while the Samaritan asked “What will happen to him?” Maybe we find the sweet spot balancing security and compassion on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.