Looking Back

Jeff Garrison 
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
Matthew 22:15-22
October 27, 2019

Homecoming is a time to look back, and the sermon is titled “Looking Back.” But we don’t look back just to be nostalgic. Instead, we should look back to help us understand where we are and how we got here. Think about all the people who helped build this sanctuary and establish this church. We’re in debt to them, and hopefully the next generation will be in debt to us. But we also look back to see where we picked up burdens that influence us today. Which ones are good that we should continue carrying and which ones should we discard?

Today, we start a new worship series titled “A Wonder-Full Life.” Speaking of looking back, the title comes from the classic 1946 film, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. We’re using this series as a lead-up to Consecration Sunday on November 24th, the day we make our faith promises to church for 2020.

      The characters in “It’s a Wonderful Life” provide us with archetypes for the many different ways we relate to life and we handle money. The book that goes with this series, Integrating Money and Meaning, uses these archetypes to explore our spiritual relationship with money.[1] And the first task to become more spiritual is to look back and understand how we relate to money. In the movie, George Bailey plays the role of the martyr. He often does the right thing, always looking out for the needs of others, but he resents it. He slips into despair. As we heard earlier, to be discouraged is worst than being sick… He’s ready to end his life. Money can be a terrible master, which I think is a message we get from today’s text. By the way, if you’d like to read the book, let me know as we have a couple extra copies. In addition to reading the book, it would be good for us to be reminded what the movie is about, so we’re planning a pot-luck lunch and viewing of the movie on Wednesday, November 13.[2] I hope you join us.

Our Scripture for today comes from Matthew 22:5-22.

 

          At our first forum on civility, Dr. Robert Pawlicki told of an incident when he was a psychiatrist and professor at a Medical School. A patient had gotten into an argument with a resident and he was called in by a nurse who was concerned the confrontation might become physical. Stepping between the two, he said to the patient, “You’re really angry, aren’t you?” By giving a name to what was happening and the emotions the patient showed, he opened a channel that helped the patient calm down. The situation de-escalated. This is good advice. Sometimes we need to go to the heart of the matter and, without increasing the confrontation, name the issue. But this is not what the Pharisees and the Herodians do in our morning text.

          It’s hard to understand this passage without explanation. The Pharisees are plotting to entrap Jesus, we’re told. How does Jesus know this? We could say that because he’s God, but that explanation doesn’t uphold the human side of Jesus. Instead, I think Jesus knew something was up when he saw the Pharisees walking hand to hand with the supporters of Herod.

Who are these people? The Pharisees: They’re good, upright, outstanding Jews, the keepers of the Law. And they are not too happy with the Roman occupation of Palestine, but they deal with it. Right beside them are the Herodians, the supporters of the Herod family. This half-Jewish family had a foot in both camps: the Jews and the Romans. The Herodians accept the Romans. Possibly, they want to modernize Palestine, for the Herods were great builders. Herod the Great began rebuilding the Jewish temple. They built ports along the coast and even coliseums for the Roman games, along with temples for the Roman gods. It’s said that politics make strange bedfellows. None could be stranger than these two groups: devout Jews and those supporting the pagan Romans. The Herodians and the Pharisees together would be like Trump and Pelosi working together. If you see it, you know something may be askew. Jesus smells something fishy!

These two unlikely groups approach Jesus. They butter him up by telling Jesus he’s sincere, he speaks the truth, and that he’s impartial. Don’t you love it when someone you are not so sure about butters you up? Then they ask the 64-thousand-dollar question. “Tell me,” they ask Jesus, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” A trap is set. If Jesus says we should not pay the taxes, then the Herodians could have him arrested for treason. And if he says to pay the taxes, the Pharisees can attack him for not being a patriotic Jew. It’s a clever trap!

        Jesus asks to see a coin. He has to be careful here. He doesn’t want the Pharisee’s to charge him with toting around an engraved image of the emperor. So Jesus has them to look at a coin they are carrying, and he asks them whose picture is on it…. They reply, “Caesar’s.” Jesus then tells them to give Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to give God what is God’s. The little band of tempters are astonished. Amazed and not knowing what to say, they leave…

Amazed, but did they understand what Jesus said? They hear “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” but did they hear “Give unto God what is God’s.” Do they understand the implications? Do we?

          The coin had an image on it, Caesar, therefore give it to him. But remember, we’re created by God, in the image of God. The coin belongs to Caesar, it has his image; our lives belong to God, they contain God’s image. Caesar may have a lien on our possessions, but God has a lien on our total being. God is calling us to dedicate our lives to himself. God, in Jesus Christ, is like those old recruiting posters found the post office, with Uncle Sam saying,  “I want you.” And you, and you, and you (point at myself last).

Give to God what is God’s. We tend to get hung up on what is Caesar’s and what is ours. Let’s face it, none of us like paying taxes. They didn’t like it in the first century and we don’t like it now. But what about the giving to God part? Essentially, Jesus is saying that we’re to respect (and support) the state, but there is a limit to the state’s powers for they belong under God’s realm, and ultimately our allegiance belongs to God.[3]

If the Pharisees and Herodians really wanted to know what Jesus thought about paying taxes, they could have taken a clue from Dr. Pawlicki and admitted how uneasy it made them feel and then ask Jesus what he thought. But instead, they wanted to trick Jesus and the attempt failed.

          What Jesus does here is demonstrate the delicate balance that exists in our use of money. Money is necessary. It’s what we trade for the necessities of life. But, as is taught in the book Integrating Money and Meaning, we need to understand the power of money. If we don’t understand its lure in our own lives, it can bring out the worst in us. There’s a shadow side to money that’s pointed out in scripture. “The love of money is the root of evil,” we read in the First Letter to Timothy.[4] It’s not that money, itself, is bad. Money is a tool, just like a hammer. A hammer can be used to build good things like houses, but it can also be used as a weapon. Remember the Beatles’ catching tune, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”? “Bang, bang, Maxwell’s silver hammer came down upon his head…” Likewise, as a tool, money can be used for good and for bad, which is why we need to spiritually discern how we relate to money. What do we spend our money on? Why do we want more of it? Will it really bring us security? Do we put our trust in God or what’s in the bank?

          Over my next four Sunday’s (we will skip next week with a guest preacher), we’ll look at how we spiritually relate to money. How do we balance things like paying taxes, buying what we need, and giving to God through the church? How much control does money have in our lives? What would we do if we experienced a windfall of money? Or what would you we do if suddenly your money was of no value? These are questions we should all be wrestling with as we come to understand, as Jesus taught, that money isn’t anything to fear. We’re not to fear money, but we’re warned that it contains power. If not understood, money can overtake our lives and become a dreadful master. Look back in your lives and ponder this question, “How do you spiritually relate to money?” “What kind of power does it play in your lives?”

Friends, take care of your obligations. I think that’s what Jesus means when he says to give Caesar what belongs to him. But remember, Jesus also speaks about what we owe God. We’re to remember that we should have only one Master, and his name is Jesus. So, we take care of our obligations, but we must remember our first obligation, that we owe everything to God. Amen.

©2019

The background photo is of me looking at a sunset on a lake deep within the Quetico Wilderness Area in Western Ontario. 

[1] Maggie Kulyk with Liz McGeachy, Integrating Money and Meaning: Practices for a Heart-Centered Life (Chicorywealth.com, 2019).

[2] The church is obtaining a video license to legally show this movie (which is required if it is shown outside a home audience).

[3] F. Dale Bruner, The Churchbook: Matthew 13-28 (Grand Rapids: MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 399-400.

[4] 1 Timothy 6:10.

Vessels holding a fountain of tears

Jeff Garrison
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
Jeremiah 8:18-9:3
October 13, 2019

 

 

        I’d ridden my bicycle down to the marina to meet with some friends late Friday. It was after dark when I left. With a rather bright LED light on my handlebars, I wasn’t worried. But about halfway home something flew into my right ear. The bug dug down deep and as it fluttered its wings. I stopped. I’d always thought the saying, “a bug in your ear,” was a metaphor. Now I was shaking my head and pounding it, in an attempt to free the bug. I was going insane. I rode on home and about every 15 seconds the insect would have saved enough energy to flutter again for a few seconds. Coming into the house, I called out that I needed help. Donna, after checking with the Mayo Clinic website, warmed up some oil and poured it into my ear. It was supposed to flush the bug out, but it never came out. Eventually the bug stopped fluttering. I assumed it drowned. Yesterday morning (which is why I wasn’t in Bible Study), I went to urgent care. They were able to remove the bug. It was a big bug and counting its antenna was over an inch long. That may not sound big until you consider the size of your ear canal.

As a good Calvinist, I’m glad that’s over. That constant fluttering drove me crazy. It forced me into action. I felt a bit like those in Jerusalem did about Jeremiah. This man with his rants drove them crazy, only they didn’t heed his words. But, unlike that bug, Jeremiah had an important message to share.

Today we continue our walk through the book of Jeremiah in our series titled “Prophecies and Pottery.” Listen carefully to our text, for we’ll hear the line of scripture from where the familiar spiritual that we just sang, “There is a Balm in Gilead” comes. The unknown writer of this spiritual answers a question that Jeremiah asks, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” Yes, the Spiritual answer, there is balm and it’s found in the work of the Holy Spirit and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This song gives hope to people who had little hope.

         Professor James Cone, writing about the African American musical tradition, said that spirituals do not deny history. They don’t deny that there’s a lot wrong in our world. Instead, spirituals see history leading toward divine fulfillment.[1] Or, as Martin Luther King was fond of saying, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Our faith does not automatically replace all that’s wrong in our lives or our world. Instead, it’s a hope that is ground in the goodness of the Almighty who, in time, will make all things right. Many of us have had to deal with disappointment. Jeremiah is a poet for such a time. Jeremiah reminds us that sometimes it takes tough love for us to be molded and fired into a vessel that’s useful. Let’s listen to God’s word to us today: Jeremiah 8:18-9:3.

         Let’s imagine ourselves in the 6th Century before the Common Era and join Jeremiah. Having left the city, the prophet walks alone, across what should be a grain field. With each step he kicks up dust. The immature stalks of grain, long dried under the desert sun, crunch under his feet. This should be the time of the harvest, but there are no men out swinging sickles nor women gathering sheaves. The grapes and the figs and the olives area also shrivel on the vine. The harvest has failed. There’s going to be hunger. And with Nebuchadnezzar’s army on the loose, there won’t be a chance to trade for food. Jeremiah’s heart is heavy. As he looks back toward the walls of the city, he cries. He images the bloated bellies of the young and the riots when there is no more bread in the market.

The sentry assigned to the tower on the West Wall had just come on duty as Jeremiah left the city. He follows the dust of the prophet. Squinting under the hot sun, he notices Jeremiah’s glance back at the city. “What a crazy man,” he thinks, as he wipes the sweat beading up on his forehead. “It’s good he’s gone.” Unlike Jeremiah, the sentry feels secure behind the strong walls surrounding the city. Yes, he worries about the drought, but the religious leaders have things under control. “Don’t they?” “The gods will provide, won’t they?”

Kicking the barren ground, Jeremiah recalls the promise of the harvest. All the work that went into it, was the plowing and sowing were all in vain? Dust is the only crop that’s in abundance and Jeremiah tastes it with every step. He continues walking. When the city’s walls are finally out of sight, he rips his robe, falls to his knees, beats his chest, and cries out to the heavens. “The harvest is past, the summer is over, and we are not saved.”

          “We are not saved.” What painful words. It’s tough being a prophet, bearing the burdens of a people. Yet, as he cries, he hears something. A voice? Can it be God’s voice? “I’m disappointed. Why have they provoked me to anger with their images and foreign idols?” Yes, it’s God, speaking judgment on the Hebrew people.

It must have been in late August or September when Jeremiah issued the prophecy. In Israel, the grain would have been harvested in late spring or early summer. If that failed, there was still hope for in July and August, the grapes, figs and olives were harvested. If that, too, failed, the people were in a pickle, for there would not be a chance for another harvest until the next spring.[2] “The summer is over, and we’re not saved,” implies the hopelessness of Jerusalem.

Our passage shows us how Jeremiah’s emotions are tied up with God. His joy is gone. He is in grief, as is God who we are shown grieving as a spurned spouse might grieve upon the divorce. Ezekiel, who was a contemporary of Jeremiah, has a vision of God leaving Jerusalem and allowing the Hebrew people to reap the fruits of their idolatry.[3] Essentially this is what Jeremiah envisioned. God has become so flustered with his people, that God abandons them. What we see here is a harsh example of tough love.

 

         Jesus told those in the synagogue in Nazareth that a prophet is never accepted in his hometown.[4] Certainly, this was the case with Jeremiah, who cried bowls of tears as his people not only continued to ignore God, they also abused him. At the beginning of chapter 9, he wishes that his head was filled with water and that his eyes were a fountain for he could cry day and night. What an image of a prophet who loved his people and who, yet, feels so helpless.

During his life, Jeremiah was considered a traitor. He challenged the king, the ruling authorities, the priests, and the military leaders. He was a thorn in their side, always speaking out for justice and for true worship of the one true God. In Scripture, we are not told what happened to Jeremiah, except that he was taken to Egypt with some who escaped there after the fall of Jerusalem.[5] One legend has it that Jeremiah kept on with his prophecies and rants and finally people had enough, like I did with that bug, and they stoned him.[6]

        While Jeremiah was considered a traitor in his life, looking back we cannot help but to see that he was a true patriot. God’s people are not called to be loyal to a king or even to a nation. Our first loyalty always belongs to God and when we fail to put God first, we risk hardship, judgment, and perhaps even defeat. Do we have the faith and the perseverance of Jeremiah? Are their Jeremiahs in our society today? If so, do we listen? Or do we tune him or her out, or worse, mock and abuse?

         You know, on the 22nd, we’re going to have our first community forum to discuss civility. If we want to build a better society, which is one of the goals of the church as we are to be a part of building God’s kingdom, we must listen to others. I hope you plan to attend and to tell others about the forum. Go to our church’s Facebook page and like the event and share it with others on your page. We have got to get our community and our nation on a new direction. We need to be about listening to all voices, even the voice of a Jeremiah, crying a fountain of tears. Only by listening to others who challenge us, like Jeremiah challenged Jerusalem, will we be able to build a better society.

         Let’s go back to that day, some 2500 years ago, and join Jeremiah once more… The heat of the day is over when Jeremiah starts back toward the city. Having wrestled with God through lament, Jeremiah is more assured than ever of God. Ahead, the city David claimed his capital, is magnificently lighted by the setting sun. As the even breeze picks up, Jeremiah picks up his pace.

The sentry, near the end of his shift, can’t believe his eyes. Emerging from a cloud of dust he’s been watching on the horizon is the prophet. He’s coming back. Why? He’d expected Jeremiah to have fled to another land. But as much as Jeremiah wants to, he cannot abandon his people. They may lack faith. They may be adulterers and traitors and idolaters, but they are still his people. And they are still God’s people. And he’s God’s prophet.

Jeremiah’s presence in a decaying society reminds Jerusalem of God’s judgment. Although the Almighty is disappointed and deeply hurt by his people’s idolatry, God never forgets Israel. God’s faithfulness once saw the nation through slavery. God will see them through defeat and exile and eventually restoration.

Jeremiah’s beat by the time he reaches the wall. The sun has set, and the stars are popping out. The air is more humid. “There will be dew in the morning,” the sentry remarks as he allows Jeremiah to enter through the locked gate. “Yes, Yes, I think you’re right,” Jeremiah responds. “The dew will be welcomed. It will remind us of how Almighty God, the God of Abraham, faithfully fed our ancestors in the wilderness.” Amen.

 

 

If any would like to be anointed with oil, as a reminder of our faith in Jesus Christ, come forward during the closing hymn and Elder Laurel McKeith or I will be glad to make the sign of the cross on your forehead.

 

©2019

[1] James Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1972), 86 as quoted by LindaJo H. McKim, The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion, (Louisville: W/JKP, 1993), 393.

[2] J. A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah: The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 306, n. 9.

[3] Ezekiel 10. While Jeremiah and Ezekiel are contemporaries, their ministry was to different groups of God’s people. While Jeremiah remained in Jerusalem, Ezekiel was called to be a prophet to the first wave of those exiled in Babylon.

[4] Luke 4:24.

[5] Jeremiah 43.

[6] Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979), 61.

Shards: Still My People

Jeff Garrison 
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
Jeremiah 4:5-31
October 6, 2019

 

 

We’re back working through sections of Jeremiah in our series titled Prophecies and Pottery. And we’re moving backwards in Jeremiah. Two Sundays ago, we looked at what is probably the most popular passage in book, from the 18th chapter, Jeremiah in the potter’s house. If you remember, there was hope that Israel would repent and change her ways. But in this passage, in the fourth chapter, there is little hope. One of the overall themes of Jeremiah is survival.[1] How do God’s people survive when there is a collapse of the nation and religion? How do you survive when everything is lost?

Theologically, Jeremiah’s task is to defend God in the face of catastrophe.[2] The people have not trusted in God. They have placed their trust in other gods. They have sought out political alliances to save them. They’ve turned everywhere except to their God. Because of their insolence toward the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the book is rather grim. God’s people are like broken shards.

         Beautiful pottery breaks. Today, during the sermon, hold on to the shard you’ve been given, and ponder God’s judgment. Think about what it means to be broken, unfixable. But don’t throw away the shard. When the service is over, take it over to Liston hall, where we’ll attempt to put it back together and see what kind of design Sue Jones created for us.

Let me say a little more about Jeremiah. The book is not laid out chronologically. The timeline seems to jump back and forth. Was this because the scrolls got mixed up at one point? Or, were they assembled this way for a reason? We don’t know. But it’s clear that while in the potter’s house, as we saw two weeks ago, there was still hope for God’s people. There is much less hope in this passage. Storm clouds are building. Today, I’m reading a just a selection of a larger passage that begin with the 5th verse in chapter 4 and runs to the end of the chapter. I encourage you to read the passage in its entirety, but I will only read verses 11-12, and 22-28.     

 

(choir members sing first verse and refrain of Ghost Riders in the Sky)

 

        For the people of Jeremiah’s day, storm clouds are gathering. It’s not looking good. It’s kind of like that vision we get from the song “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” those wayward cowpokes who are eternally damned to chase the Devil’s herd. Storm clouds are always frightening. But let’s think about ourselves.

          You know, we have blessed as a nation in that no foreign army has invaded us for over 200 years. The last was during the War of 1812. It’s been a century and a half since those of us who are from the South experienced the horrors of having towns and cities burned, armies destroyed, and people suffering. We can only image what it was like for the people in Savannah during that Civil War, hearing the distant bombardments of Fort Pulaski and Fort MaAllister, and then, in 1864, the rumors building fear as Sherman’s army approaches.

          In this section of Jeremiah, the approaching Babylonian army is described as a hot wind blowing up a frightful dust cloud off the desert. This could be like the dust clouds off Africa that eventually turn into hurricanes that threaten our coastline. In the part I skipped, we hear how the rumors begin to filter down to Judah and Jerusalem, starting way to the north, above the Sea of Galilee, in the territories of Dan. We know a similar drill with hurricanes as they approach the Leeward Island and the Lesser Antilles and the Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Bahamas as the storm makes its way across the South Atlantic. Sometimes these storms are like Jeremiah’s vision, bringing total destruction. Just as we hurt seeing the damage Dorian caused the Bahamas, we also worry what might happen to us if the storm doesn’t turn, Jeremiah is bothered by his vision. He can see it happening and cries out in anguish. But despite the heartache of what he sees, he faithfully proclaims God’s word.

         The second part of my reading describes the aftermath. Destruction is total. Starting with verse 23, the poem recalls the “dismantling of creation.”[3] The land is depopulated and void and without light. There is little hope in this passage for judgment is total… well, almost total. At the end of verse 27, we get a glimpse of hope. After God promises to make the land desolate, we read that God “will not make a full end.” In other words, a remnant will survive. God will continue to have a few to survive, after all they are God’s chosen people, in order to re-populate the land. So, there is hope, just not much. And everyone, including Jeremiah, will suffer.

          For Christians living in America, we may have a hard time relating to Jeremiah’s vision. But many Christians, those living around the globe in places where it’s dangerous to worship Jesus, recognize Jeremiah’s anguish as their own. For them, gathered around this table on World Communion Sunday, they are in danger. They know what it means to worship in fear, to experience the loss of jobs, of their homes and their land because of their faith. They know what it means to be locked up, to be tortured, and to watch loved ones be taken away and never return because of their faith. Christians are suffering in China, in Eritrea, in North Korea, in Iran and Iraq, in Syria and parts of India. We must stand by those who do not enjoy the freedom to worship as we enjoy it.

We must also realize as bad as life gets on earth, there is always hope. It may be just a glimpse. Jeremiah’s vision of destruction was so troubling that it affected him physically.[4] He knew what was coming was terrible, yet he never gave up on God. For as bad as things were get, he trusted that God was present and, eventually, things would change for the better.

          Remember, we have an insight Jeremiah didn’t have. We know about the resurrection, how the grave is not the end. Jeremiah knew that somehow God’s destruction wasn’t going to quite be total. We know that even if it appears total, as it does at death, as when we peer down into the grave, God is still God and the end is not the end.

Yesterday I did the funeral for Gerry Baumgardner. We heard about how Gerry was a reader and instilled her love for books into her children and grandchildren. I’m not sure she read horror, and I’ve only read a few such books. But when you read a good horror book, you are excited to finish and find out what’s happens, but you also don’t want it to end. But it must end. Sooner or later we have must put it down and be done with it. In a way, life is like that, except that when it’s over, God is waiting with a sequel. But, unlike with a horror book, the sequel will be beautiful.

         The center of the gospel is the hope we have in the resurrection to eternal life. And for that reason, we can face those storm clouds. We can face the stampede of Satan’s herd and the cowboys running roughshod across the skies, and know that as bad as things are, there’s hope. We may feel like we’re just broken shards of pottery, but God has the power to make what’s broken new and whole. Believe in God. Hold on to such hope. Amen.

 

©2019

[1] Kathleen M. O’Conner, “Jeremiah Introduction” in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible (NRSV with Apocrypha) Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 1051.

[2] Ibid, 1052.

[3] Walter Brueggeman, To Pluck Up, To Tear Down: Jeremiah 1-25,  (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, International Theological Commentary, 1988), 56.

[4] Verse 19, which is translated in the NRSV as “My anguish, my anguish! I write in pain!” is an attempt to capture the vivid description of the Hebrew in which Jeremiah cries of pain in his bowels. See J. A. Thompson, NICOT: The Book of Jeremiah, (Grands Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 227-228.

The Potter’s House

Jeff Garrison
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
September 22, 2019
Jeremiah 18:1-12

 

How many of you have a cabinet at home filled with Tupperware and other such plastic containers? (Raise your hands. Be honest). If your home is like mine, there are a variety of plastic stuff of all sizes. When it comes time to save left-overs, or to pack a lunch for the office, I can always find the size I need. Of course, I then struggle to find the matching lid, but that’s another story. Ponder for a moment what would our lives be like without such containers? How would we get by? Now let’s go back 2500 years.

        You might be wondering about all this emphasis on pottery as we look at the Prophet Jeremiah. Pottery was a revolutionary technology in the ancient world. It allowed more movement as people could store things in pots, such as water and grain.[1] It provided a better way for cooking. No longer did our ancestors have to roast things over a fire like cavemen. They could make something tasty, adding herbs and spices and making broth. The pottery revolution was one of the great steps in human history that devolved to Tupperware. It allowed our ancestors to settle down. No longer did they have to wander from one source of water and food to another. They could stop and build cities. The potter played an important role in the ancient world. God often uses examples from everyday life to make a point, and with Jeremiah, it was the potter and his work. This morning, we’re visiting the potter’s house.  Read Jeremiah 18:1-12.

 

Show Video of Lee Hyong-Gu, Ceramic Master                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxpyG6ClIDU  (3 minutes 20 seconds)

 

I love watching a potter shape clay. Don’t you?

         About twenty-five miles northwest of where I was born, where the Carolina Sandhills turn into clay hills, is a dot on the map known as Jugtown. It’s a place I like to visit when I am back in that part of the world. Today, the area around Jugtown and Seagrove is dotted with crafty potters who turn muck into beautiful and useful art. It’s a treat, as we’ve just seen on the video, to watch a potter turn a lump of clay on the wheel into something useful and beautiful.

          Jugtown received its name, as you can guess, from jugs. The law-abiding folks in the clay hills around there, I’m sure, intended their jugs to store molasses, honey, cane syrup, or something similar. Of course, it was also used to hold liquefied corn (also known as white lightning or moonshine). But with the advent of mason jars, such use of the jugs ceased. But early on, some of the potters had new ideas. In 1917, two of the potters began selling their wares in a store and tea shop in New York City. They emphasized utilitarian pots, things that could be used such as pie plates, crocks, mugs, and bowls. They stamped their unique mark on the bottom of each vessel. Over time, they began to teach new potters the craft and as one generation passed, another took up the wheel. Today, if you go to the area around Jugtown, you’ll find dozens or potters selling their wares. These artists have brought new life into that worthless clay that sticks to your shoes and gums up a plow.

Finding a new purpose is sometimes helpful, and it could make a good moral of this story. But is it really what this passage is about? We need to remember that we’re not the potter, we’re the clay. Our purpose comes from the potter. And while, as this passage shows, the potter wields power over the clay, the clay might not always be suitable. If that’s the case, the potter starts over and creates something that works with the quality of the clay he has. In this passage we see God’s sovereign control, as a new type of pot is created. God’s in control, a fact we’re not always comfortable with.

        Jeremiah is called to the potter’s house where God uses a common image of the ancient world to make a profound message. God’s word comes to him as he watches the potter over and over start off one direction with clay, and it not working, so he reworks the clay into something more suitable. This sounds hopeful. God will continue to work with us until we become a vessel that serves some purpose. One preacher, writing about this text, said that it demonstrates a sovereign God, “not a God of absolute capricious control, but a gracious willingness to change his plan to benefit his flawed people. When God discovers this fatal flaw in his people, he does not simply destroy them; he offers to start over.” [2]

But there’s a tension in the text that comes in verses 7-11. To make this passage to be only hopeful, we must cut the passage short and stop at verse 6. But that’s not fair to the text. Yes, there is hope in this passage, but the hope is offered to a repentant people who heed the warning that comes at the end of the passage. If they don’t heed the warning, the hope evaporates.

       Jeremiah’s task is to preach impending judgment to God’s people. If they don’t shape up, if they don’t stop running around chasing foreign gods and idols, if they act like they’re in control and the God of the Universe is of no matter, they will be punished. Just as the potter can shape a vessel in a new way, they can be handled in a different manner. God can shape another nation to punish. There appears to still time, at this point, for the Hebrew people to change. Later prophecies of Jeremiah hold out no hope of repentance, but here, it’s not too late.[3] But time’s wasting. If they don’t hurry up and repent, it’ll be too late. And as we see in verse 12, the people don’t take Jeremiah’s words seriously. They follow their own plans and act in their own ways. God is not amused.

          The message of this passage is that God has the power to reshape us, but we must let God work with us. If we resist God’s shaping, we may not be completely crushed, but we won’t fulfill the potential for which we were designed. The intention of our passage isn’t to be fatalistic and say we have no control. Instead, it’s a warning that we’re to work with God and not against him.

We often look at Scripture through our individualistic lens, and there’s no doubt that God has control over us as individuals, but it’s important for us to understand that this passage isn’t about a person, but about a people. God’s people. Today, we could apply this passage to the church. Those of us in mainline denominations often feel the church is being pulling apart. But using this analogy, we can see that perhaps the church is just being reshaped. If that’s the case, we need to look beyond our own perceived needs within the church, and to look where God needs the church within the world. That’s the hard task the Session has before it. It’s not what we can do to please the most people, but what we should be doing to join in God’s work.

        When you leave this sanctuary today, ponder these questions: Where is God at work in the world? How can we participate? How can we be the clay that trusts the potter? Amen.

©2019

 

[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best, (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1983), 76-77.

[2] Stan Mast, Old Testament Lectionary for September 2, 2019: Jeremiah 18:1-11” published by the Center for Excellence in Preaching: https://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/proper-18c-2/?type=old_testament_lectionary

[3]  John Bright, The Anchor Bible: Jeremiah (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 124-125.

Don’t be a Crackpot

Jeff Garrison
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
September 15, 2019
Jeremiah 2:1-13

 

We began our series on Prophesies and Pottery last week, when we saw how Jeremiah was formed by God to be his mouthpiece to Israel. Our image was that of a lump of clay, which has not yet been formed into the vessel. We’re all like that lump and when we allow God to mold us, we can become something beautiful. Throughout the Book of Jeremiah are images of pottery and clay. Some are being formed. Others have already been formed and fired and are now broken and no longer useful. Today’s image is like that, of a broken cistern. There is not much use in a vessel which no longer holds water, just as the cracked pot in our display is useless. Today’s message can be summarized: “Don’t be a crackpot.”

       Last week we learned of Jeremiah’s call by God as a prophet to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”[1] As I stated then, Jeremiah was one of the longest serving prophets in Israel’s history, with a career spanning roughly forty years. In chapter two, we see that the prophet gets down to business, as he calls on God’s people to change their ways before it is too late.

This chapter takes the form of a legal indictment, a common genre in the ancient world. There are surviving examples in which a ruler or a king wrote an indictment against a ruler of a vassal state who is not fulfilling the desires of the controlling state. Think about the king of Judah, as a vassal state of Assyria, receiving a letter from the king of Assyria. The letter would contain an indictment. It could be used to nip in the bud any thoughts of revolution, as the superior king reminds his inferior king the benefits of their relationship while also threating punishment if things don’t change.[2] A more recent example might have been a letter sent from the Soviet premier to Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968, right before troops rolled in. The leaders of Hong Kong have probably also received such a letter. It’s also like a letter of a jilted spouse or lover. God sends this letter to his people through Jeremiah. It’s a warning and a reminder of who’s in charge.

This passage contains some of the earliest words of Jeremiah,[3] perhaps being spoken even before the religious reforms of King Josiah, long before Babylon comes onto the international scene. Last week, I spoke about how Jeremiah was called to be a prophet at an optimistic time in the history of Judah. The armies of Assyria had destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and for a century had controlled Judah as a vassal state. But Assyria’s power was waning. Without them on the international stage, there was hope of a better future for the Hebrew people. But it didn’t happen. Josiah was killed, his reforms were short-lived, and the people continued to chase after the gods of their neighbors. Jeremiah’s voice brings God’s indictment against the Hebrew people, especially the leaders (both religious and secular) for allowing and encouraging such idolatry. As you can imagine, when things are looking up, people don’t want to hear such rants as came from Jeremiah. But he was called to be faithful, not to scratch their itchy ears. Read Jeremiah 2:1-13

 

        In the spring of 2018, my sister, my father, and I took a trip to the Dry Tortugas. I’m sure many of you read the article I had about the trip in The Skinnie.[4] A popular misconception is that Key West is the last of the keys. It’s not. Sixty-eight  miles west of Key West are the Dry Tortugas, a collection of small coral keys that rise just above sea level. The island was discovered by the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, who named it “las Tortugas” or “the turtles.” Without any fresh water to drink, cartographers added the word “dry” as a warning to sailors. Even without water, the islands were strategically important for our country, especially in the days of sailing ships.  The keys provided a harbor for ships during storms and they provided an outpost to intercept any attempts of an invasion of our Gulf Coast. The islands protected the harbors of New Orleans, Mobile and Pensacola. In the early 19th Century, after the War of 1812, when our nation began to seriously deal with national defense, Fort Jefferson, a huge brick fortress, was built on the largest key. Fort Jefferson may be the largest brick structure in the Western Hemisphere.

      If you’re going to have a fort with a substantial garrison on an island without fresh water, you must find a way to overcome that limitation. The engineers who designed Fort Jefferson came up with a unique way to address the lack of water. They built a series of cisterns under the walls of the fort and designed a system to funnel rainwater into the cisterns where they provided water for later use. The fort could hold nearly two million gallons of water. It was thought there would be enough water and provisions within the walls for the fort to survive a yearlong siege.

       But the plans of men and women often fail. This massive fort, built with millions of bricks and packed dirt, was so heavy that of the 136 cisterns, all but three cracked and allowed saltwater to infiltrate. They became useless.

Through Jeremiah, God says that the Hebrew people are like cracked cisterns. The Hebrew people knew that God was talking about, for they lived in a semi-arid land that only received water part of the year. Farmers would dig out cisterns in the rock, but since the rock was limestone, which is porous, they’d have to seal the rock with a plaster-like substance. But the earth moves and at times such cisterns would crack and began to leak and when the farmer needed water, none would be available.[5]

       The cracked cistern image shows Israel’s condition after chasing after non-existent gods. As humans, we all need water. An image of God’s providence found throughout Scripture is that of living water nourishing us.[6] God expects us to draw from such living water, but when we turn our backs on God, or try to create our own source of water (be it security or prosperity) while ignoring God, we risk dying of thirst. That huge, powerful fort that couldn’t provide its own drinking water is a good example. It takes more than human strength and might to provide for our needs. It’s also dangerous for us to seek security in anything outside of God, for no other gods (that’s gods with a small g), or human systems of power, will last forever. Sooner or later, we will fail. Only God is eternal. Do we stick with God or with the plans of men and women?

But the people of Israel didn’t want to hear this. Jeremiah the bullfrog, croaking in the corner of society, was a nuisance they tried to ignore. And soon, it would be too late. Jeremiah’s call needs to be heard throughout all ages: “trust in the Lord, not in anything else.” It’s as true today as it was 2500 years ago.

As you know, the Session of your church have been studying the challenges facing us. As a congregation, we are aging. We are struggling to find ways to reach new groups of people, and to invite them to be a part of our fellowship and help us continue to reflect Jesus face to our community and to the world. The Session has spent considerable time and energy examining the congregation and the community. We have looked at our worship services, the message and the music, along with the needs and wants of members and non-members. But about half-way along this road, it finally dawned on some of us that what’s important isn’t what we want, but what God wants. So, we added a prayer component to our attempts to strategically plan. We know that without God, we are useless. We are like cracked pots in which the water runs into the ground. The problem with cracked pots or cisterns is that sooner or later, when drought comes, we’re left dry. So, I encourage you to join with the Session in praying daily for our congregation. Each week, you’ll receive a new prayer. It’s on your flyleaf of the bulletin and you’ll also receive it as an email reminder during the middle of the week. Take this prayer and pray it daily. Whatever we end up doing, we need to be seeking God’s direction.

      Friends, we don’t want to be cracked pots. We want to be vessels holding abundant living water that will quench our thirst, and can be shared to others, to quench theirs. Amen.

 

©2019

[1] Jeremiah 1:10.

[2] J. A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah: TNICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 159-160.

[3] John Bright, Jeremiah: The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 16.

[4] Jeff Garrison, “A Visit to the Dry Tortugas,” The Skinnie, Vol. 16 #15 (July 20, 2018).

[5] Thompson, 170-171.

[6] Jesus spoke of this as recorded in John’s gospel (see John 4:10-14, 7:37-38). It appears several places in Revelation (see Revelation 7:17; 21:6; 22:1, 27), Even more common is the stream that God provides which brings life, which is found at Creation in Genesis (Genesis 2:6) and throughout the Psalms (see Psalms 1:3, 46:4 as examples). Jeremiah will later use the image of the stream bring life in 31:12.

Called to be a Bullfrog

Jeff Garrison
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
September 8, 2019
Jeremiah 1:4-10

 

 

 

        The prophet Jeremiah lived in interesting times. He was one of the longest serving prophets in Israel’s history, his calling coming as the Assyrians were losing power.  It was a time of optimism in Jerusalem because they had existed as a vassal state under Assyria for over a century. It appeared they might be free once again, as in the years of Kings David and Solomon. Furthermore, Josiah, one of Judah’s few good kings, was implementing religious reforms. But then Josiah is killed in battle against Egypt.[1] Instead of peace and prosperity, the years following Jeremiah’s call are troubling. Babylon rises in power and the nation’s existence is again threatened.[2] Jeremiah, as a prophet, must go against the grain as he brings God’s message to the Hebrew people.

          We, too, are living in interesting times. Things are scary in our world: rogue nations having the bomb, individuals going berserk and killing people, terrorists creating political instability, and huge storms leaving behind chaos and destruction. The news often leaves us fearful and angry. And since we often don’t have answers for the problems we face, we blame others. Ben Sasse, a Senator from Nebraska, suggests one of the few things uniting us is our contempt for those of whom we assign blame. “At least,” we say, “we’re not like them.”[3] By the way, in his book Them, Sasse suggests this is not the way to live!

As in the days of Jeremiah, we need to hear a rational voice reminding us to trust in a God who has the power to reshape and remake us, as a potter crafts clay, in a way that the future will be bright and wonderful. Maybe we—look around, you and I—need to be that rational voice. This is God’s call to the church of today. We must step up to the plate and offer an optimistic challenge to the world today. This morning we’re going to look at the call of Jeremiah. As I read this passage, consider how God might be calling you… Read Jeremiah 1:4-10.

 

Jeremiah was a bullfrog,
was a good friend of mine.
I never understood a single word he said
but I helped him drink his wine.[4]

 

Did Hoyt Axton, who wrote this song that became a major hit for Three Dog Night, have the prophet Jeremiah in mind? There’s some debate about it. His lifestyle didn’t exactly display Sunday School values, but the words “Joy to the World” certainly draws upon the Christian imagination.[5] We don’t know his intentions, but Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Let me explain.

        Back in early May, Gary Witbeck and I took a trip into the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. On our second night, we were camping on a platform at a place called “Big Water.” It’s the headwaters for the Suwanee River. As the sun set and evening descended, we watched alligators battle over territory (or maybe they were fighting over mates, or were flirting, we couldn’t tell the difference). While the gators fought, in the background a chorus of frogs sang. Their song would come in waves, starting up the river and working its way down and then back up. The frogs were in perfect harmony. You couldn’t tell one frog’s croak from another. It was quite beautiful.

But occasionally during that evening, we’d hear the loud croaking of a bullfrog. They were distinct. They were loners. You could pick out each individual one and the direction toward where the frog was located. Jeremiah was like that, like a bullfrog. He provided a distinct message to the people of Israel. He was heard off to the side. There were others in those days, a chorus of prophets, who spouted off the message the people and the king wanted to hear. Their sounds all blended together. But Jeremiah was alone, going against the popular chorus. He was God’s messenger.

        But this is where the song gets it wrong. The one singing, claims to be a friend of Jeremiah, enjoying drinking his wine. But the Jeremiah of the Old Testament, was often lonely. He didn’t have many friends bellying up to him at the bar. Like a bullfrog, he cried out the message from God that he’s been given, and message that no one wanted to hear, so he was often alone and vulnerable. But he was faithful, and when we consider eternity, that makes all the difference in the world.

Today, the church appears more and more marginalized in society. After decades of arguing over things around the periphery (issues of sex and of women leadership and homosexual rights and such), and having been so caught up in political debates, those outside the church identify us more by what we’re against than the person we are to be following. For Jeremiah, doing God’s work was a challenge. For us, following Christ can be just as challenging.[6] We need to offer hope to the world that can only be found in Christ Jesus. But it’s easy to succumb to the chatter around us, to become a frog in the chorus and not the distinctive sound of the bullfrog.

        You’ll notice in the text that Jeremiah didn’t have a choice in all this. He was chosen by God before the foundation of the earth. Yesterday morning, in the Men’s Bible Study, we were reading Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where are reminded that God calls us through Jesus Christ to do the work which has been prepared for us.[7] Our call, like Jeremiah’s and the Ephesians’, isn’t something that we initiate. It comes from God.

Eugene Peterson notes how we often get things wrong. We see ourselves coming to church to learn about God or to check in on what’s God up to. But that’s backwards. It’s not our initiative. God has known us all along and is calling and leading us through the Spirit. God’s doing this long before we even accept his existence.[8] Regardless of who we are, God loves us and sees us as important and can use us to help make this world a better place.

        Of course, like Jeremiah, we can beg off. Jeremiah said, “I’m just a boy.” Looking around, we might say, “we’re too old.” But God has heard that one, too.  Remember Abraham and Sara? How old were they?[9] Have you ever wondered if maybe the reason God used all these old folks in the Old Testament was to take away our excuses? We’re all young. None of us have an excuse. God promised Jeremiah that he’s going to be with him and that he would be given the words to say to the corrupt generation into which he’d been born. Likewise, Jesus promises his followers (that be “us”) that we’ll be given the words to say.[10] Do we trust God enough to live differently, to sing a different song, to stand out against the crowd and to live, not for ourselves, but for our Lord Jesus Christ?

          Jeremiah has been appointed for a mission. Likewise, the church has been appointed for a mission. We’re all called by God to follow Jesus and to point to him as our hope in a world that often seems hopeless.

 

         Over the next six weeks, as we work through this series, we’ll be using images of potters. Our image today is a clump of clay, being kneaded like bread dough. The technical term for doing this to clay is “wedged.” The potter takes the clay and stretches and pushes it like a baker works dough. In doing this, all the air pockets are worked out so that the clay is easier to shape on the wheel and afterwards, when firing, the pot won’t have air pockets that’ll explode and destroy the vessel.[11] As followers of Jesus, we have to be open for God working with us, just as a potter works with clay, in order that we might be reshaped. God will work out the old and create in us something new. Are we open to such shaping? Are we willing to be a bullfrog for God and to call people to be attentive to Jesus’ way of living?

         Paul, writing to the Ephesians, encouraged them to put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander and malice. Such behavior is to be wedged out of us, like air is wedged out of the clay, so that we might be kind to one another, tenderhearted, and forgiving.[12] The world may see such traits as signs of weakness. They even got Jesus killed. But that was then. We need to remember that the world, as it is, won’t last. We’re not looking for the world’s approval. We’re striving to be faithful to that which is eternal, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

©2019

[1] 2 Kings 23:28ff.

[2] For a background on the world in Jeremiah’s day, see John Bright, “The Life and Message of Jeremiah,” in Jeremiah (New York: Doubleday, 1965), LXXXVI-CXXIV.

[3] Ben Sasse, Them: Why We Hate Each Other-and How to Heal (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018), 9.

[4] Hoyt Axton, “Joy to the World.” Recorded by Three Dog Night on Naturally, 1970.

[5] https://www.songfacts.com/facts/three-dog-night/joy-to-the-world

[6] See Stan Mast, Notes on Jeremiah 1:4-10 published on the “Center for Excellence in Preaching website: https://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/proper-16c-2/?type=old_testament_lectionary

[7] See Ephesians 2, especially Ephesians 2:10.

[8] Eugene H. Peterson, Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best (Downers’ Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1983), 37-38.

[9] Abraham was 75 when he was called (Genesis 12:4). He was 100 and Sara 90 when Isaac was born (Genesis 17:17).

[10] Matthew 10:19.

[11] For a discussion of this process, see Marjory Zoet Bankson, The Soulwork of Clay: A Hands-On Approach to Spirituality (Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths, 2008), Chapter 1: Grounding.

[12] Ephesians 4:31-32.  Likewise, Jeremiah is called to both “pluck up, tear down, destroy and overthrow” while also building up and planting  (which we can assume to mean removing that which is not pleasing to God, and planting/building up that which is pleasing).

Banquet Etiquette?

Jeff Garrison
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
Luke 14:7-14
September 1, 2019

 

The fourteenth chapter of Luke’s gospel opens with Jesus attending a dinner party at the home of a leading Pharisee. It’s the Sabbath, so it’s a special gathering with food that had been prepared earlier. As the sun sets and the Sabbath begins, Jews put on their finest robes and light their best candles. The Sabbath is important; one Jewish scholar describes the whole week as a pilgrimage to the Sabbath which is a foretaste of the eternal Sabbath.[1] But, as we know, there was a lot of debate in Jesus’ day over the meaning and purpose of the Sabbath. Jesus taught that the Sabbath is created for us, not us for the Sabbath, as some taught.[2]

Luke creates tension by telling us in verse two that all the eyes are on Jesus. There’s a man suffering from dropsy, an illness swells the body with water. Today, it might be called “Congestive Heart Failure.[3] He’s right in front of Jesus. Is Jesus being set up? Jesus asks the gathered crowd if it’s right to cure on the Sabbath. He receives no answer, so he cures the man. The he justifies his actions by asking them if they would intervene if they had an ox or a child fall into a well on the Sabbath. The crowd remains quiet.

This dinner party must have been the quietest on record. Normally, as everyone gathers, people mingle around with cocktails and greet one another. There’s a lot of talking. People offer their opinions about the day’s ballgame or the hurricane offshore or the Treasury’s inverted yield curve. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Everyone is quiet, so Jesus takes the stage and teaches with a series of parables. Today, we’re going to look at the first parable. Read Luke 14:7-14.

 

         At the end of the sixth grade at Bradley Creek Elementary School, there was a graduation banquet. It was held in the evening, which made it special, and in the cafeteria, which wasn’t so special. I’m sure we had macaroni and cheese. We always had mac and cheese. There must have been a rule that you couldn’t open the cafeteria without mac and cheese. But this was a special meal, so maybe there was a slice of ham or a piece of chicken and a piece of cake that was larger than the one inch cubes they fed us at lunch.

While I don’t remember exactly what we ate, there’s another memory from that evening that haunted me for years. I assumed our parents were invited to this banquet. I encouraged my parents to come. I am not sure where I got this idea, for there no other parents there. I’m not even sure why I thought it would be a big treat for my parents to eat cafeteria food. I was embarrassed, even though they graciously slipped out. Instead of eating cafeteria mac and cheese, they went to Wrightsville Beach for a seafood dinner.

Knowing the feeling of having invited someone who wasn’t invited, I understand some of what Jesus is driving at in this passage. Don’t make assumptions. It’s always better to be called up to the head table, than to be told you need to go to the back of the room. It’s simple banquet etiquette.

          In the bulletin, I titled this sermon “Humility and Hospitality.” The problem with coming up with a title a few weeks before writing a sermon is that you often have no idea where the sermon is heading. I later decided that a better title might be Banquet Etiquette. But as I continued to study and ponder, I decided to put a question mark at the end. Yes, Jesus expects us to be humble and not pretentious. Such advice will also keep us from being in an embarrassing position. Yes, on the surface, this is about etiquette. But is this what Jesus is driving? Is this Jesus’ attempt to be the Emily Post of the first century? Or is there a deeper message here?

         Remember what I said about the Sabbath, before reading this passage? That it was a foretaste of the eternal kingdom. And this section of Luke’s gospel is filled with parables that focus on the kingdom.[4] Parables generally operate on more than one level. They often, as Ken Bailey describes in his work on parables, contain a “play within a play.”[5] Each level has a different meaning. While the obvious meaning of our text today is about being humble and not pretentious, the deeper meaning of the parable has to do with God’s kingdom. What is Jesus envisioning here?

       The surface meaning may have to do with avoiding embarrassment. A deeper meaning might be that we should humble ourselves. One of the challenges that Jesus had was his disciples wanting to grab key positions in the coming kingdom.[6] Two of the dudes when so far as to ask their mom to intervene with Jesus on their behalf.[7] This is a deeper meaning of the parable. Don’t get caught up in all the fuss over where you’re going to be seated at the heavenly banquet (or even an earthly ones).

         But there is another way to look at this parable, which I had not considered until I read a blog post by a pastor in Iowa earlier this week.[8] He found himself needing to get to Minnesota where his wife was at with one of their cars that he needed to drive back to Iowa. He took the bus, which meant leaving Des Moines at 5 AM. Taking a bus can be an experience as most of the people on the bus are not like us. We drive or fly. I know what he means by taking a bus because 25 years ago, Donna and I had taken the train out west. It was a summer with a lot of floods and since train tracks are often right by rivers, they were flooded. Coming back, we ended up being on a bus for part of our journey. On this trip, from Iowa to Minnesota, the blogger realized the blessings that can come for being among those who were not like him—those with darker skin, many of whom spoke Spanish. Blessings can be experienced even when sitting at the back of any banquet.

          Instead of Jesus wanting us to show humility in the hopes that we might be called up to the head table (as you could read this passage), maybe Jesus is telling us to meet others where we find ourselves. Show hospitality to those less fortunate. If our only goal was to sit at the head table, we could easily display false humility to gain such a blessing. [9] Image a Monty Python skit where everyone is trying to outdo one another in humility in order to be seen as most humble just so they could be exalted.

         But Jesus wants us to long for the kingdom, which isn’t going to be made up of exclusively of those who look, and act like us. Jesus’ vision is for a world where believers cherish their friendship and fellowship with all people. It’s about us showing goodness to those who have no way to repay us for what we can do for them. Ponder what this kind of world might look like.

          You know, none of us know what this week will bring as Dorian churns up the waters. When Hurricane Matthew hit in 2016, I spent a few days in Dublin, GA. There’s a great hot dog shop there, not far from the courthouse, where I found myself drawn at lunchtime. There were the regulars, but there was also those of us in exile: from Savannah, from Hilton Head, from Brunswick and Saint Simons. The place was packed. Friendships were made as we were forced to share tables. Stories were told of shared experiences such as being in gridlock on the highway. There was a lot laughter. I image that’s how the kingdom will be. So, if we evacuate this week, and you find yourself in a strange land for a few days, don’t see it as a burden. Instead, take it as an opportunity to sample the kingdom. That’s what Jesus would have you do. Let us pray:

 

God of the wind and waves, the earth and the sky, we know of Jesus calming the storm. Calm our hearts as Dorian approaches and keep us safe. We pray for the people in the northern Bahamas, who are experiencing the worst of a natural disaster. Be with them, and with us. Where ever we find ourselves, whether we are at the head table or in the back corner, help us to be the people who show kindness. Amen.

 

©2019

[1] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (1951, New York: Farrar, Staus, & Giroux, 1979), 90-91.

[2] Mark 2:27. See also Luke 6:1-5.

[3] https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=13311

[4] In Luke 13, Jesus tells two parables of the kingdom (verses 18-19: Parable of the Mustard Seed, and verses 20-21, Parable of the Yeast). After this parable, he tells another parable of the great banquet, which is also about God’s coming kingdom.

[5] Kenneth El. Bailey, Through Peasant Eyes, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), xiii.

[6] I. Howard Marshall, New International Greek Testament Commentary: Commentary on Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), 581.

[7] Matthew 20:20.

[8] https://blog.reformedjournal.com/2019/08/27/my-bus-ride/?utm_source=Email+Subscribers&utm_campaign=ef7c65f61a-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6195eefb80-ef7c65f61a-111355499

[9] See Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Louisville, KY: JKP, 1990), 176-177.  Craddock reminds his readers that the word in the New Testament that’s translated as hospitality literally means “love of a stranger.” Hospitality isn’t just rolling out the red carpet for important guests but welcoming those who may be on the margin.

Elijah Sings the Blues

Jeff Garrison 
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
1 Kings 19:1-15
June 23, 2019

 

 

         As a music tradition, the Blues rose out of the African American experience of slavery. In song, they cried about their plight as they longed for freedom. The song, “Go Down Moses,” captures this desire for freedom. But this tradition is found throughout scripture. For of all the Blues’ singers that’s lived, Elijah may have been the best.

In our passage today, from First Kings, Israel has been in a drought and Elijah, the prophet of God, is feeling alone. There’s been a show-down where Elijah challenges all the prophets of Baal. “Let’s see who can call down fire from heaven to consume an offering on the altar.” Elijah succeeds and the people turn on the prophets of Baal. Then, Elijah forecast the end of the drought and rain comes upon the parched land. You’d think Elijah would be a hero. But he’s not. And the queen is not happy.

          “Hot Jezebel!” The queen’s name has found itself on an appetizer made of fruit preserves, horseradish, mustard and pepper.[1] You spread the concoction over cream cheese and serve with crackers. The sweetness of the preserves and the bite of the horseradish grabs your attention. It’s appropriately named.  Jezebel must have been sweet on Ahab for the king to put up with her, but she also had a tempter hotter than horseradish. She wasn’t the type of lady to cross. She could carry a grudge.

In this passage, we’ll hear how Elijah cries out to his God about how unjustly he’s being treated as he flees from Jezebel’s wrath. Read 1 Kings 19:1-15.

 

        Have you ever felt you were all alone in the world? That everyone was out to get you? If so, you can identify with Elijah’s plight. Twice in this passage, once even after he encounters the Lord, Elijah proclaims his righteousness and cries out about Israel’s apostasy and how all the prophets have been killed except him.  It was the same cry he made in the previous chapter on Mt. Carmel.[2]

Elijah overstates his case a bit. We know there are others in Israel who are faithful. In the last chapter, we’re told that Obadiah, one of Ahab’s servants who remained faithful to God, has hidden 100 prophets.[3] Furthermore, we’re told there are at least 7,000 in Israel who will be spared by God because they have not worshipped Baal.[4] But when he singing the blues, Elijah doesn’t care about the details. It sounds better to say, “I alone am left and they’re after me.” We are a lot like Elijah and have probably overstated our troubles, too. Overly dramatic sometimes gets folks attention.

It’s also interesting how quickly Elijah’s depression follows his triumph. Any satisfaction Elijah received from having upstaged the prophets of Baal is short-lived. For as soon as Jezebel hears about the demise of the prophets of her gods, she sets out to kill Elijah. It probably like that for us, too, as we go from the elation of being on a mountaintop to the fear of descending into a valley of dark shadows. Hopefully, we don’t have a mad queen on our tails.

         The Beatles hit record back in the mid-60s, “Yesterday,” comes to mind when I think about Elijah’s predicament. It a kind of a mellow blues tune that goes something like, “Yesterday, all my troubles seem so far away, now it looks like they’re here to stay. O, I believe in yesterday.” Elijah could relate to these words. Perhaps we, too can relate. In the last verse of the song there is the line: “Now I need a place to hide away.” That’s Elijah! And we’ve all been there. The glory of yesterday is gone and we need a place to hide. Elijah flees south into Judah where he’s safe from Jezebel’s reach and then goes off by himself into the wilderness where he finds a bit of shade under a broom tree and lays down to die.

          While asleep, an angel brings bread and water for Elijah.   Obviously, Elijah assumes this is his “last meal.” He enjoys it and then, awaiting death, goes back to sleep. Again the angel wakes Elijah. Some people just don’t like getting out of bed. Elijah’s informed that he has a long journey so he’d better eat up and get on the road.

 

          Elijah sets out on a forty day journey to Horeb, the mountain of God. Forty is one of those special numbers used throughout the Bible to indicate a purifying process or a time of preparation. It rained for forty days while Noah was in the ark; the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years; and Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness preparing for his ministry… Elijah was being prepared to meet God in his forty day journey. Forty, the number that reminds us that our troubles are not always instantaneously solved.

Arriving in Horeb, Elijah seeks shelter in a cave. There, the voice of the Lord asks him what he’s up to. Elijah repeats his tale of Israel’s unfaithfulness and how he is the only prophet left alive. Instead of answering Elijah’s complaint, he’s told to stand before the mountain, as the Lord is about to pass by. Then our story takes a surprising twist. There’s a great wind, but the Lord is not in it. There’s a powerful earthquake, but the Lord is not in it. Then there is a fire, and likewise, the Lord is not in it.

 

Three great events, all which are used in other places to describe God: the word for God’s Spirit means wind; on Sinai, the mountain shook as an earthquake to indicate God’s presence; and during the exodus God appeared as a fire, leading the Hebrew people. All three of these events could have represented God, but not in this incident. Here God is presented in a unique fashion. Silence. After all the commotion, there’s silence.  Sheer silence. A silence so terrifying that it pierces Elijah’s ears and he pulls his jacket up over his head and wraps it around his face in an attempt to hide.            Again, a voice asks Elijah what he is doing on the mountain. Once again, Elijah cries the blues. But the Lord doesn’t grant Elijah sanctuary. Elijah is not told, “Just stay here, I’ll take care of you.” God isn’t finished with Elijah. There is still work to be done, so he’s sent back to Israel through Damascus. Along the way Elijah is to anoint the King of a neighboring nation, an illustration that the God of Elijah cares for and controls not just the events in Israel but throughout the entire world.

          This story is rich in meaning. The eerie silence is often how God reveals himself in the wildernesses of our lives. God tells us, through the Psalmist, “to be still and know that I am God.”[5] Barbara Brown Taylor, in the published version of the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale University, speaks about God’s silence being a defense against our idolatry.[6] Too often we make God out to be in our image. As Mark Twain once said, “God created us in his image and we returned the favor.” But God is not in our image. The church, throughout the last two millenniums, has taught that God is beyond our comprehension.[7] We only know God when God decides to reveal himself to us—which is revelation. It is a revelation that’s complete in Jesus Christ!

Elijah, in the 18th and 19th chapters of 1st Kings, has two different revelations of God. The first occurs on Mt. Carmel when Elijah’s sacrifice burst into flames to the astonishment of all who were present. Elijah must have thought that he and God were going to make a great team. But God is beyond our control, as Elijah discovers. The Mt. Carmel experience was a one-time event. God would still be present with Elijah, but many times this presence would take on the form of an eerie silence.

          There is a lesson in this for us. All of our spiritual journeys have ups and downs. There are times we feel close to God and other times we feel as if God is far away and doesn’t care what happens. Elijah is like this. From his spiritual high on Mt. Carmel, when there was no doubt God’s spirit was with him, Elijah slips into a depression and begins to sing the blues. “It’s just me Lord, and there ain’t much I can do.” He feels so sorry for himself that he’s ready to die. So God reveals himself again to Elijah, but in a different manner, in a most common fashion: silence.

          Aren’t we like Elijah? There are those times when we know we’re filled with God’s spirit and we’re on a natural high and the blues seem so far away. These are the times we know God is real—they’re our Mt. Carmel experiences. But then, there are occasions when things do not go right, when we feel sorry for ourselves, and God doesn’t seem to be present. It’s during these times we need to slow down enough to listen for God in the silence. It’s in the silence that we can come to trust that God is with us always. It’s not something we can explain or even demonstrate. Its faith: faith and a longing for that which lies beyond our grasp, that which we cannot control, but without which we can’t live.

Ricky Porter, the pastor in Dublin, was our Bible Study leader this week at Savannah Presbytery’s camp. The theme was “Power Up,” and was about prayer. Thinking of the term “power up,” we have a vision of getting all excited about God. But there’s a paradox here paralleling what we see with Elijah. Prayer isn’t just about being all excited and telling God all we think God needs to know. It’s also about listening. To “power up,” we need to be silent and open for God to reveal himself. So each day, Ricky had the campers spend longer periods in prayer, splitting the time between talking to God about our needs and concerns, and just sitting in silence, listening and meditating. Quietly listening is a good practice for all of us, and perhaps the only way we can truly experience God’s presence. Amen.

 

©2019

[1] Hot Jezebel Recipe:  Combine in a bowl:

  • A 12 ounce jar of apricot preserves
  • 2-3 teaspoons of horseradish
  • 1 tablespoon of dry mustard powder
  • Coarse ground pepper to taste

Place in refrigerator to chill. Then spoon it over a block of cream cheese and serve with crackers.

 

[2] 1 Kings 18:21.

[3] 1 Kings 18:4.

[4] 1 Kings  19:18.

[5] Psalm 46:10.

[6] Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent (Boston: Cowley Publications, 1998), 38.

[7] See the Westminster Confession, Chapter II.1.

Would You Like to Dance?

Jeff Garrison
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
1 Corinthians 2
June 16, 2019

 

Who likes to dance? I’ll admit that I have two left feet and am not exactly graceful on the dance floor. But thankfully, when it comes to the eternal dance, the only one that matters, I don’t have to depend on my own grace. That’s the good news.

It’s Trinity Sunday. “So what?” You might think. “What does the Trinity have to do with me?” If we just think of God as some force up in the sky, then the Trinity wouldn’t mean much to us. But thankfully, that’s not the way God works.

          On the flyleaf of the bulletin, I placed a quote from Brian McLaren, who describes the Trinity as a divine dance.[1] If we think of the Trinity in this fashion, it does matter. For as the three members of the Trinity, who are mysteriously one, dance, they reach out and invite us to join them. God the Father, the Creator of all that is, wants us to enjoy his handiwork. Jesus Christ the Son, the Redeemer, the one who pays the price for our sin, wants us to make the most out of the new life he offers. The Holy Spirit, whose presence remains with us in this world that can often be daunting, draws us into this dance. And once we join the dance, we are to draw others, as God is praised.

The Trinity reminds us that at the very center of God is about love and relationship. God invites us into a relationship. Do we accept the invitation to dance?

Our passage today is steeped in theology.  Paul lays down a foundation for the Trinity and how God is working to reconcile us back to himself.  Read 1 Corinthian 2.

###

         “New and improved!” It’s a marketing cliché we hear all the time. Yet, it gets out attention. Whether it is laundry detergent, automobiles, cell phones, computer play stations or soft drinks, our ears perk up and we rush out to buy. This is also be true for churches. We start a new program, there’s a new minister, the music is new, and so forth. We’re drawn to what’s new. By the way, this isn’t anything new! Paul faced this in Greece. The Greeks coming onto the scene. When he was in Athens, Paul was given the podium to speak before the philosophers about his faith.[2] But Paul knew that his message wasn’t based on the sophistication of his argument, but on a deeper truth that mere humans cannot understand without divine intervention. So Paul tells the Corinthians he came knowing nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified.

         Paul presents himself in weakness, in fear and trembling.[3] He doesn’t depend on his words or his rhetoric to make the case; instead he depends on God’s Spirit. But this doesn’t mean that Paul talks to the Corinthians as if he’s a country bumpkin. He’s not, as the detail of his arguments illustration. It’s just that Paul is referring to God’s wisdom, which is beyond human understanding.

God’s wisdom is eternal and hidden, yet it’s revealed to us. God is free to do that. In verse 8, Paul refers back to Jesus’ crucifixion. The people who crucified the Savior were bright people, but they did have true wisdom. They did not know God; for if they had they would not have crucified Jesus.

         Paul is affirming here the Reformed doctrine of Irresistible Grace, or as it is known in the Westminster Confession “Effectual Calling,” which acknowledges God’s hand in our belief and understanding of the work of Christ.[4] What this means is that God gives us even the faith we need to believe! God’s Spirit works through our spirit to bring us to faith in Christ.

         As we read in Verse 9, we can’t imagine that which God has arranged for those he loves. God’s love for the world is beyond our comprehension. The beginning of our Christian faith isn’t belief, its love![5] God’s love! And as we continue reading, we learn that God lets us in on the secret of his great love.  God’s Truth is shown in the person of Jesus, a truth that for those who don’t understand seems foolish.

      In Ken Bailey’s commentary on 1st Corinthians, he points out how Paul is affirming the doctrine of the Trinity throughout this passage. God the Father has all things under control; in Jesus, God comes to us as a man, in a manner that we might understand; and God’s Spirit, working through our own spirit, reveals this to be true. We see the three persons of the Trinity at work here. Although Paul doesn’t use the term Trinity, through rhetorical exegesis, Bailey cites six occasions in these verses where Paul alludes to the Trinitarian concept. Bailey, who taught most of his career in the Middle East, tells of a time he was a part of a Christian-Muslim dialogue. After dinner, one evening, one of the Muslim scholars questioned him as to the Trinity, asking for his help to understand this Christian doctrine. Bailey took the scholar to this passage and spoke about God’s work as shown throughout these verses. [6]

What does the Trinity mean to you? Do you see the mystery of the doctrine of the Trinity important to your understanding of the faith?

         One popular phrase among Presbyterians is “The Church reformed, always reforming.” It is often cited as a reason for us to change, but it has nothing to do with that and the way it is often cited leaves off an important part of the phrase that came out of the Reformation and proclaimed, “The Church reformed, always to be reformed according to the Word of God in the power of the Spirit.”[7] The fullness of the phrase proclaims the truth of both God’s word, which is grounded in Jesus Christ, and God’s Spirit, which works through us to reclaim us into God’s family. At the heart of our faith is the work of the Triune God., who makes such reform possible. Without God, we’d be blow to and fro like a sailboat without a rudder.

Sometimes we think too much of ourselves, as if we’re self-sufficient and can do it all. In my reading for this sermon, I came across this line which popped out at me: “The church lives not by what we’re able to do, but by what God has done and continues to do in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.”[8] Do you see the interactions of the three persons of the Godhead here? Father, Son and Spirit, they’re all present. What’s ultimately important isn’t what we do, but what God does. Yet, often what God’s does is done through us.

I have always appreciated the insights of Alexander Schmemann.  He’s deceased but when he was alive, he was probably the top American theologian in the Russian Orthodox tradition, one of those groups that describe the Trinity as a divine dance. In his masterful work, For the Life of the World, he wrote about how we, as humans, tend to meet the need we have for God with empty human endeavors. We need to experience God, but we often go for some design we concoct and which fails to meet our needs.[9]

          Essentially what Schmemann goes on to say, and what Paul also says, is that we need to experience a god that is not forced into our secular beliefs, but the God who transcends all so that he might reach out to everyone in love. Paul is referring to a God that is so big he can’t be contained in our human constructs. As believers, we need to be open to God speaking in and through us. And because we love God, we should seek to do that which God loves. For that is why we’ve been created.

Back to my opening point about new and improved… When it comes to the gospel there is no such thing. The gospel is eternal and does not depend on our efforts to be improved. The gospel depends on God’s triune efforts to reach out to us in love.  It’s a simple message that we are to humbly proclaim. Like Paul, we believe in and proclaim Jesus Christ. He is our Lord and Savior, our comfort in times of trouble and our hope in the future. Are we willing to join him? Are we willing to join the dance? I assure you, it doesn’t matter ifyou have two left feet. Amen.

 

 

 

                                                                                ©2019

[1] Brian D. McLaren, a Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 55-56.

[2] Acts 17:16-21.

[3] I’m borrowing language here from the New Revised Standard translation of the Bible for 1 Corinthians 2:2-3

[4] Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 67

[5] Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (1963, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988 ), 105.

[6] Bailey, 115-118

[7] Book of Order, F-2.02

[8] Mark Achtemeir, “The Lordship of Jesus Christ,” in a Passion for the Gospel: Confessing Jesus Christ for the 21st Century, Mark Achtemeier and Andrew Purves, editors (Louisville, KY: Geneva, 2000), 20.

[9] Schmemann, 134.

 

Pentecost Sermon

Jeff Garrison 
Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church
John 14:8-17
June 9, 2019

 

Today is Pentecost, the birthday of the church, a day to wear red in remembrance of those tongues that appeared as flames announcing the arrival of the Spirit. But instead of preaching on the Pentecost passage in Acts, I want us to look at the gospel lectionary passage for the day. Here, Jesus first promises to send a special friend (an Advocate, a Helper, better known as the Spirit) into the Christian Community. In the gospel of John, Jesus reiterates this five times.[1] The sending of the Spirit is a big deal.

Our reading this morning from the 14th chapter of John’s gospel takes place around the table of the Last Supper. The part of this chapter before our reading involves our friend, Doubting Thomas. He asks Jesus how we can know the way to where he’s going if we don’t know where he’s going. In the 6th verse, Jesus gives his classic statement, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, except through me.

But Thomas isn’t the only one asking questions this evening. In our reading, Philip chimes in with a statement that we could have all made. “Just show me, Jesus, and I’ll be satisfied.” Let’s listen to God’s word. Read John 14:7-17

###

        Over a period of a few weeks, a minister listened to a parishioners tell the same fish story many times.  Each time the fisherman told the story, the fish took on a different dimension. Sometimes he made the fish out to be a whale and other times it seemed to be just a lively bass. Finally, the minister felt he needed to confront this fisherman about his habitual lying… After worship one Sunday, he called the man aside and told him about hearing the same story told in different ways to different listeners… “Well you see,” the fisherman explained, “I have to be realistic. I never tell someone more than I think they will believe.”[2]

        You know, we can only understand and comprehend so much and it seems that in the passage I just read, Jesus overloads his disciples. He attempts to teach them about the unique relationship between him and God the Father, and our relationship to them though the Holy Spirit. From this passage we learn that our knowledge of God comes from our knowledge of Jesus Christ. Through the life of Jesus, we are able to see God. Furthermore, we learn that through prayer, obedience, and the Holy Spirit we are empowered to carry on Jesus’ work and can experience his peace. This is a passage that deals with the work of the Trinity: God as Father, Son, and Spirit. It’s a lot to comprehend, but Jesus knows his time is short and he needs to prepare the disciples for what’s ahead.

        This passage starts off with Philip begging, “Show us the Father and we will be satisfied.” It’s a natural request. Philip’s descendants must have ended up in Missouri, the “Show Me State.” You know, Philip easily answered Jesus’ call at the beginning of his ministry, as John shows us in his first chapter.[3] But it appears he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps Philip feels he needs some kind of grand demonstration of God’s power, or an encounter like Moses had on Sinai. Such a presentation was not forth coming.

Think about Philip’s question. Don’t we all want to know more about Jesus? Wouldn’t it be nice to have more evidence?   Wouldn’t it be great to just see God and get it over with? Then everyone would believe…But it doesn’t work that way. Jesus tells his disciples that the way they, and everyone else, will encounter God is through him. The way God reveals himself to us is through the man named Jesus. Maybe instead of demanding more evidence like Philip, we need to accept what Jesus has to say.

It may seem a little strange, but after living with Jesus for three years, the disciples still don’t understand his unique relationship to the Father in heaven. We must admit, it’s difficult to imagine Jesus being a man and God. Our minds struggle with such a mystery. As a creature of God, we do not have the ability to understand God…  Before being able to understand anything about God, we must be willing to accept our human limitations. When we do, we can relate to God through another human being… Jesus Christ.

          Jesus asked his disciples to believe that he was in the Father and the Father was in him, and that his words were the words of the Father. The disciples, being normal logical people, had a hard time understanding how the Father and the Son could be the same. As they wondered, Jesus tells them to just believe, and if they couldn’t believe because of what he said, to believe because of the works that he performed. In other words, there are two ways for them to engage with Jesus’ special relationship with God. They can accept his word or be moved by his work.[4]

        Jesus covers his relationship to God the Father because he wants to get on to what’s going to happen after he departs. After all, this is a conversation around the dinner table the night before the crucifixion. Jesus is preparing the disciples for when he’s no longer going to be present with them.

Jesus makes the shift between focusing on his relationship to the Father and to his continuing relationship to humanity in verse 12. There Jesus promises something strange, telling his disciples those who believe in him would be able to do even greater works after he had gone to the Father. Of course Jesus gives some ground rules for these works… The greater works would be done to glorify God the Father and would be accomplished through prayer, obedience, and the Holy Spirit.

        If we pray to Jesus, asking the power to do something that glorifies God, then, he promises, our prayers will be answered. Jesus also promises that God’s Spirit will be with us forever. In other words, we are not abandoned. We are not alone. God is with us. And think about how this has been fulfilled over the centuries. Jesus and his band of disciples made an impact on a small corner of the ancient world, between Galilee and Judea. But within a generation, his followers were planting seeds—from India, to Ethiopia, and to Europe—that would make a significant difference. In 300 years the church would be established all over the region and from there go out into the rest of the world.

        In the 17th verse, Jesus tells his disciples that they’ll be accompanied by a true friend that only they will know. It’s the Spirit that abided with the disciples after Pentecost and now abides with us. In other words, just as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father, so we are in the Spirit and the Spirit in us. Knowing he’s not going to be around much longer, Jesus wants to assure the disciples (and us) that they (and we) will be taken care of. Through the Spirit he’ll continue to nourish our souls….

          Let me point out one interesting thing here. The Spirit, as spoken of in verse 17, isn’t to us as individuals. When Jesus says the Spirit abides in you, it’s plural, not singular. In other words, the access to the Spirit is found within the fellowship of the church. It’s within the fellowship that Jesus commands us to love one another, as we abide in God through the Spirit and abide in one another through love.[5] This passage doesn’t support an “individual” being caught up in the spirit. Such experiences occur within the community.

Jesus’ purpose in this discussion is to give comfort to the disciples who are going to miss him. Jesus encourages them with the promise of God’s continual presence through the Holy Spirit. Through this promise, he’s preparing them to go out and build a church, which they did because they knew two things: that Jesus and the Father are one and that he’s still with them in Spirit. Even though Jesus isn’t present in bodily form, he remains with the disciples (and us) by answering prayers and through the presence of the Spirit. The work of the Trinity involves the Father, Son, and Spirit, but through the Spirit, it also involves us.

         The early disciples found comfort in Jesus’ words, and we can too. Though Jesus we can know God, and more importantly, we can be forgiven and found to be righteous so that we can enter God’s kingdom. Furthermore, it is comforting to know God’s Spirit, which was first manifested on Pentecost Day so many years ago, is still with us today, ready to lead the church into the 21st century. As a church, our life must be grounded in the Spirit that abides in us. For this reason, the church always has hope. Despite persecution or indifference from the world in which we live, we have something the world doesn’t. We have God’s Spirit, and we need to trust this gift, because it is all that matters. If we abide in the Spirit, we’ll be okay.

         Rejoice, today is Pentecost. Be bold, for God is with us. Amen.

 

©2019

[1] John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26, 16:7-11 and 12-15.

[2] Snappy Steeple Stories, compiled by Oren Arnold, p. 43

[3] John 1:43.

[4] Gerald Sloyan, John: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Atlanta, JKP, 1808), 180.

[5] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012), 836