Peace Sunday 2021: Defending Hope

We live in a world of despair. You can read and see it in the media. Stories from North Korea tell us of continuing despair in the face of an unacknowledged pandemic, combined with hunger for food and hunger for power. Stories from South Sudan tell us of continuing ethnic strife, so that help provided for marginalized people is eaten up by warlords. Stories from Palestine tell us of the continued struggle to hold on to ancestral homes. Israelis and Palestinians tell competing narratives that leave no room for compromise. Stories from Colombia waver between the hope of a country searching for peace and wealthy people using their power to dispossess the marginalized. 

 

Of course, you don’t have to go so far away to find despair. What do we make of the news in our own backyard, when we hear of a double homicide and a third person who lies in critical condition? As the news trickles out, the despair deepens. We find that the victims are known to some of us – good friends and neighbours. 

 

How can we defend hope in a world of despair? How can we live with the terrors of our world and sing the songs of Zion? “We are people of God’s peace” – sure, but how do we get there? 

 

Romans 12 

The passage we read from Romans 12 reminds us that we are responsible for our part in the various activities of our world. In verse 18, Paul says, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” This verse summarizes a series of statements that Paul makes: Bless others; care for them; live in harmony; don’t repay evil with evil; always do what is right. Then he adds this summary: In your relationships with others, so far as your part is concerned, be a person of peace. 

 

This is incredibly difficult advice, but Paul meant it, just as Jesus meant it when he preached the Sermon on the Mount. We want to water it down and make it practical. Don’t be a doormat, we say. If someone attacks you, you can fight back and defend yourself. But that’s not what Paul says. 

 

He continues, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” Wow! This is a radical take on “live at peace with everyone”. 

 

What it means, I think, is this. We live in a world where despair lurks around the corner all the time. Hope is a candle that seems on the verge of going out. We are the defenders of that hope. We are the ones who keep the candle burning. We keep it burning by being people of peace in every situation. 

 

How? When someone treats you unfairly, of course you defend yourself, but you refuse to treat them the same way. When someone acts out their hate in relating with you, you respond with love and care. The only way to end the despair that comes from the violence in our world is to end the violence. And the only way to end the violence is to end it in ourselves. Which brings us to Psalm 23. 

 

Psalm 23 

I have often been troubled by one verse in this well-beloved Psalm: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” I like how it continues: “You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” But that one verse sounds as though it is having my enemies on the outside looking in that makes the meal God serves me really satisfying. “You feed me, and they have to watch unfed!” 

 

That’s not the only way to read it. What if David (assuming David wrote the twenty-third Psalm) meant something else. What if the enemies are present because they are invited to the feast? What if God wants to restore those who hate me – not just to restore me, but to restore my enemies to life in God’s presence? What if God wants everyone to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb (as the book of Revelation calls it)? 

 

If that’s what God wants, then God is going to have to do the heavy lifting. I can’t make my enemies into God’s friends. I can’t bleach the hatred and anguish out of their lives. But God can. That’s what the cross and resurrection are all about. God taking broken and hurting people and restoring them to life. God taking people trapped in violence and making them people of peace. 

 

Synthesis 

The reason that we keep our candle of hope burning is that God is at work in us and in our world. God is making peace where we can’t. I think of an old friend of mine. He used to be the bishop of my church in Zimbabwe. In the early 1980s, his father owned a store out in the country in the south of Zimbabwe. Some drunken soldiers came in one day and ordered him to give them beer. He didn’t sell beer, so they gathered up discarded bottle caps from the soda bottles and stuffed them in his mouth. Then they beat him around the mouth with their rifle butts and left him. 

 

He ended up in the hospital in Bulawayo with gangrene in his mouth, which in the end took his life. Before he died, my friend visited him one last time. As he stood there, looking at his father, dying from violence endemic in the poverty of the countryside, he imagined in his mind taking those soldiers’ children, lining them up against a wall, and machine-gunning them. His father saw what was in his eyes and said to him quietly, “Don’t, Dan. Don’t.” 

 

Dan listened to his father and set hatred and revenge aside. He taught his own children to love and not to hate. His son now lives in Winnipeg, where he is the director of CHAI, a ministry to immigrants in Winnipeg. Our world is filled with fear and hatred, but my friend chose peace and love. He is a defender of hope in a world that tilts towards despair. 

 

God is calling you and me and our families and our friends to be people of peace, keeping our candle of hope burning in the winds of hate that blow around us. Join me in following God’s call, so that we also can eat at God’s table in the presence of our enemies. 

 

 

 

Focus Statement: As a people of peace, we defend Hope in a world that specializes in Despair. 

 

Scriptures: Psalm 23; Romans 12: 9-21 

 

Thinking Ahead Question: Think of places around the world where violence is common – such as South Sudan, Colombia, or Palestine. How can we continue to hope in the face of such violence? 

 

7 November 2021 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

 

Choosing David

A funny thing happened on the way to this sermon. I read the lectionary texts, and I thought I knew what sermon was coming from them. I wrote a focus statement and sent it out to the people doing the children’s feature and the music, so that they would know what I was planning to say. Then I reread them and started to write. As I wrote and thought, the sermon suddenly stepped from the path we were on and joined another path, and I found that it was really a sermon about peace and nonresistance. Not where I thought we were going!

I started with several questions. How does God work in our world? Many people are ready to say they are on God’s side and to declare that their actions have divine sanction. How can we tell if they are right? I thought that exploring story of David’s anointing would help answer this question, so I started looking at another question, “Why did God choose David?” Walk with me through the texts and see what happens.

1 Samuel 16

The story of David’s anointing is an interesting one. It serves to explain how God removed the kingship of Israel from Saul’s house and settled it on David’s line, but it does so in a way that emphasizes God’s rule in all of life.

Our text tells us that Saul had failed to follow God several times, and finally God rejected Saul. Last Sunday, Lee took us through the way that the Israelites had insisted on a king and how that insistence represented a rejection of God as king. God then chose Saul to lead them, but Saul insisted on following his own way once he became king, and God took the kingship from him.

Following God’s internal voice, Samuel went to the area of Bethlehem, where God led him to the family of Jesse. Samuel then inspected Jesse’s sons to see which one of them God had called as king. Our text says that David’s brothers looked like better candidates to become king than David did; God tells Samuel, “[People] look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Paul describes David in memorable words (Acts 13:22) as “a man after God’s own heart.” God chose David because David oriented his life towards God. Sometimes he succeeded – his victory over Goliath remains an amazing act of faith. When he succeeded, he thanked God for leading him. Sometimes he failed – his betrayal of Uriah was a shameful act. When he failed, God rebuked him, and he admitted his failure and turned back to God.

Why did God choose David? Because David oriented his life towards God. God defined for him what was right and what was wrong. God’s glory and goodness gave David’s life meaning, both when David did well and when he did wrong.

Here’s where the sermon went sideways on me. The story makes its point in a context that we find difficult to process – that of warfare and fighting. David is called to be king precisely to defeat the Philistines and to establish Israel in military terms. We examine this difficulty in order to understand something of what God may be saying to us.

We begin by acknowledging that Israel’s military activity is a problem for us. We understand the call to peace that Jesus makes to mean that we cannot ourselves embrace the use of violence that David embraced. What then do we do with it?

Note that David’s own example emphasizes his weakness relative to the enemies he faced. In the next chapter, we have the story of David and Goliath. However much we may deplore the use of violence to kill Goliath, we can see the element of God’s saving activity through human weakness. David is a young lad; Goliath is a giant of a man. David is unarmed except for a sling and some stones; Goliath is fully armed with the best and latest weapons. All that David has is God’s presence, and God saves Israel through David’s weakness.

The whole story reminds one of Gideon and the 300, who defeated the Midianites several hundred years earlier (Judges 7). Gideon began with 32,000 men to fight against Midian. He winnowed them down to 10,000, but God required a further winnowing – to 300 men. The reason for this winnowing is stated clearly: “The people who are with you are too many for Me to hand Midian over to them, otherwise Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has saved me.’” God chooses to work through human weakness to make it clear that God saves us; we cannot save ourselves.

These stories illustrate the words of Psalm 20: 7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”

The problem of violence in the Old Testament remains, but it is relativized. God wanted God’s People to trust God rather than the strength of their own arms. In the New Testament, most notably in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes it clear that God’s desire is for a radical trust that dispenses entirely with violence. That sounds like a peace sermon to me!

Mark 4:26-34

So, we turn to Mark’s gospel. The first part of Mark 4 presents the parable of the Soils, concluding with words that emphasise God’s right to determine human destiny. God acts in our lives to bring about growth – the growth of God’s kingdom. The parable of the soils uses the miracle of plant growth to suggest how greatly God’s reign can grow in human existence. The parables we read at the end of the chapter remind us of this truth.

·         The first of the two parables we read considers the miracle of something like wheat: While the farmer goes about their daily work, the single seed turns into a plant, which then becomes a full-size plant with a full head of grain. The growth of God’s reign comes from God. The most we can do is participate as God’s servants.

·         The second parable considers the contrast between how small the seed is and how large the plant is that grows from the seed. Once again, the growth is God’s work, and we receive God’s good gifts, however little we deserve them.

·         The third section of the passage we read describes the place of parables in Jesus’ teaching. He taught the people in parables, and he gave fuller explanations to the disciples. It almost looks as though Jesus did not want people to get the point, but that, I think, misreads the text. The point is rather an invitation to become a disciple. The parables spark interest in God’s reign, and those who choose to walk with God find out more fully what God is actually doing.

Bringing the Scripture into our Conversation

Come back to the questions that we began with: How does God work in our world? Many people are ready to say they are on God’s side and to declare that their actions have divine sanction. How can we tell if they are right? To put it another way, if God’s Reign is growing in the world around us, how can we choose to be part of God’s Reign?

Look again at David. These questions lead us to another the question: “Why did God choose David?” Why would God choose a man of war to lead God’s people into peace? Why would God choose someone who failed in such significant ways? David destroyed Uriah’s marriage and took Uriah’s life because he wanted Uriah’s wife. Why would God choose someone like that? David was a failure as a father. His sons fought among themselves to take David’s place, even before their father had died! Why would God choose someone like that?

I said earlier: Because David oriented his life towards God. God defined for him what was right and what was wrong. God’s glory and goodness gave David’s life meaning, both when David did well and when he did wrong.

To put it another way, if you want to be a part of God’s Reign growing in this world – like the parables of the growth of the kingdom in Mark’s gospel – then you must be like David. Not by fighting against the Philistines, but by seeking God’s heart and mind and glory. David oriented his life towards God. God’s glory and goodness gave David’s life meaning.

But God’s glory and goodness are seen most clearly in God’s love and peace. God refused to let David build a temple for him because his hands were stained with the blood of his enemies. Jesus brings God’s perfect reign, which is a reign of peace and love. I find it hard to resist this conclusion: If you want to know who loves God and desires God’s glory, if you want to know “who is on the Lord’s side”, look to who is living a life of God’s peace and love.

So Hard to Do!

Living a life of peace and love is brutally hard to do. I know this truth from my own life. In the past month, when I’m in my study, the phone sometimes rings with someone I don’t know calling the church. One call came from someone in our area – not from our church – who was upset because we don’t meet for services in our sanctuary. He told me that we are siding with Satan and kept pushing and pushing. I could feel myself getting more and more angry, until I hung up on him. I want to live a life of peace and love, but it is hard to do!

I had another call a few weeks later, from someone who said she lives in Winnipeg. She identified us with the church south of town who actively oppose any government restrictions. She told me in no uncertain terms that we have blood on our hands and that she would pray to God that we might be saved from Hell. Again, I could feel my anger rising, until this time she hung up on me. I want to live a life of peace and love, but it is hard to do!

When I am faced with the anger and vitriol that many people express, I do not feel peaceful or loving! I need God’s love and forgiveness to pick me up and get me going again! That’s where we learn from David. David was “a man after God’s own heart”, because whenever he failed, he turned back to God and sought God’s presence and direction in his life.

Two hundred and fifty-five years ago, Swiss Mennonites migrated north from Pennsylvania to what they then called “Central Canada”. On July 6, 1986, Mennonites celebrated 200 years in Canada with a service in Kitchener, Ontario. I was there in the gathering of about 8,000 people as we celebrated with the theme of “Mennonites: A People of Peace.” Ron Sider was asked to speak about our Anabaptist commitment to be a people of peace in the world.

Thirty-five years later, I don’t remember most of what we said or did that day, but I do remember a basic part of Sider’s address to the assembly. He said something like this (adapted to our setting):

If you want to have peace in this world, you must have peace between the nations of the world. If you want to have peace between nations, you must have peace within the nations of the world – such as Canada. If you want peace in Canada, you must have peace between the Provinces of Canada. If you want peace within the Province of Manitoba, you must have peace between the communities of Manitoba. If you want to have peace between the communities of Manitoba, you must have peace within each community. If you want to have peace within Steinbach, you must have peace between the families of Steinbach. If you want to have peace within your family, you must have peace between the members of your family. If you want to have peace with the others in your family, you must have peace within yourself, and that means peace with God.

Now any one of the links in this chain may fail. We may have family conflict or a church fight. We may see violence in our own community or in the international community. But the basic point is clear: Our desire for peace in the world, something we all desire deeply, depends in the end on responding to God’s call in our lives. If we are a people after God’s own heart, we become those who live out the growing reign of God in our lives. That means that when people call us looking for a fight, we respond with God’s peace and love. When we find ourselves struggling with the problems and relationships of this world, we respond with God’s peace and love. The truth is that this task is beyond us – unless, like David, we depend on God to pick us up and set us back on the “paths of righteousness, for his name’s sakes”.

We started by asking, “Why did God choose David?” We should ask also, “Why has God chosen us?” And then we respond by welcoming God’s presence within us, moulding us into God’s people, growing and growing until God’s reign fills the whole world.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

13 June 2021

Texts

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

³⁴ Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah of Saul. ³⁵ Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel.

16 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” ² Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ ³ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” ⁴ Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” ⁵ He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

⁶ When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” ⁷ But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” ⁸ Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” ⁹ Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” ¹⁰ Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” ¹¹ Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” ¹² He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” ¹³ Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

Mark 4:26-34

The Parable of the Growing Seed

²⁶ He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, ²⁷ and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸ The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

³⁰ He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; ³² yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

The Use of Parables

³³ With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; ³⁴ he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

Focus Statement: God works in ways that may surprise us. Our job is to be listening for God's presence and direction.

Looking Ahead Questions: How does God work in our world? Many people are ready to say they are on God’s side and to declare that their actions have divine sanction. How can we tell if they are right?

Christmas Sunday: On the Road to Rejoicing

Christmas Day has come and gone, and we gather together on Christmas Sunday. Advent comes to its conclusion today in this place, and we enter the season of Epiphany (the time when we mark the coming of the Magi). Our final word for the season is “Rejoicing”. We travel the road of redemption to its destination, the joy of receiving the Messiah, the one who brings life and hope to all people in our world. We consider our Scripture passages together and examine the shape and nature of this overwhelming joy.

Isaiah 61-62

The last chapters of Isaiah have an eschatological focus. They point to the way things will be at the end of all things, encouraging us to live today with the hope of ultimate salvation. The passage assures us that in the end God will make all things right. Isaiah was writing to people who saw how bad things were. They had been carried off into exile in Babylon. They had experienced restoration, but the new reality was not much better than the old. Although they were back home in Judah, life was hard and uncertain. In their distress, Isaiah says clearly, “God will make everything right, and the whole world will see it.”

We live in times that “try our souls”. We see things going wrong. I hear regularly from people who think that our world is doomed and that we can to nothing to save ourselves. God speaks to us also: “For as the soil makes the young plant come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.” He adds: “The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; … You will be a crown of splendour in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.”

In these times, we see God’s salvation. In these times, we rejoice that God is with us. In these times, we celebrate God’s grace and goodness in our lives.

Luke 2

Luke 2 tells how two more people who had been waiting for God’s salvation recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Simeon was “righteous and devout” and spent much time in the temple. When Jesus was taken to the temple for circumcising, Simeon was there. He saw the baby and him in his arms and prophesied over him. He identified Jesus as the salvation of God’s people, and he told Mary that opposition to Jesus would pierce her soul as well. (One wonders what about Joseph; perhaps his words indicate that Joseph would die before the events he was prophesying.)

Then we meet Anna, a woman 84 years old, who had lived in the temple since her husband died – perhaps 60 years earlier. She also prophesied over the child, calling him “the redemption of Israel.” What is going on in these prophecies? They identify Jesus as the coming Messiah, and they point to his future ministry as the Messiah. Is there anything else?

I think that there is. Simeon is an old man (his age is not stated, but it is implied). Anna is an old woman. Both had spent their lives waiting for God to redeem Israel. Both are confident that Jesus is the Messiah who will bring salvation to God’s people. They join the growing crowd of witnesses in the text to Jesus’ identity. In Luke 2, we meet the shepherds and the angels. In Matthew 2, we meet the magi from the East. Here we meet representatives of the temple. They complete the crowd of witnesses, making the point that Jesus came for everyone – young and old, Jew and Gentile, men and women, rich and poor, educated and uneducated. Jesus comes with salvation for everyone. We rejoice, because Jesus came for each one of us. Nobody stands outside of Jesus’ saving embrace, except by their own choice.

The Shape of Celebration

One observes that the conditions of Jesus’ day looked no more hopeful than the conditions of the passage in Isaiah 61. We can expect, then, that the conditions of our day are equally the context in which God comes to us with salvation and a context that appears almost hopeless. The reason that we have hope is twofold: One, God is here, whatever our circumstances look like; and two the end of all things is certain. Remember that the season of Advent always prepares for the birth of Jesus and anticipates the return of Jesus at the end of all things. As someone has put the message of the book of Revelation, “God wins in the End.” That truth permeates everything we do now, and so we can rejoice.

Consider our theme song with which we have started each service this Advent. We began with it today as well. “We come,” anticipating what lies ahead. Why did we sing it today? We might have sung instead, “We’ve arrived.” But you see, we do not sing that final song of arrival until we stand in God’s presence in the New Heavens and New Earth. Our destination this Christmas is really just a way stop on the journey of our lives. We sing this truth in a Zulu song, “Singabahambayo thina kolumhlaba; siyekhaya ezulwini – we are pilgrims on this earth; we are on our way to Heaven.” We sing this truth in the old song, “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through. … If Heaven is not my home, Then Lord, what will I do?”

In my own field of mission studies, we call this truth “the Pilgrim Principle” of Christian living. We balance it with something else called “the Indigenous Principle”, which tells us that God lives fully in every culture and every people on earth. Both principles are true: God lives with us wherever we are, fully at home in our culture; and God calls us to our final home in the New Heavens and Earth.

The importance of these two truths is that they make us able to live with joy here and now, even when the situation around us is falling apart. We belong to God, and we live with the joy of the Lord wherever we are and whatever is happening.

Have you ever met someone who seems to rise above the troubles around them? Have you wondered what their secret was? Sometimes it is simply a matter of personality. Some people have a good digestion and nothing they eat ever seems to bother them. Some people have a good disposition and respond equably and calmly when trouble is bubbling all around them. Is that all there is to it? Can we learn to live out of the depths of God’s goodness and love, even when our external situation is hard?

Living for Heaven

Basic to the gospel is that we are called to live by the standards of God’s Reign on earth. That is, we live on the basis of the New Heaven and Earth, promised in Isaiah and reaffirmed in the New Testament. The Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew’s Gospel with parallels in Luke’s Gospel) is the clearest exposition of what it means to live this way. How do we move in this direction, when everything around us conspires to “press us into the world’s mould”?

Romans 12 (from which I took the phrase above) says that we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God. The two people in today’s reading from Luke had their own way of doing just this. Simeon was moved by the Spirit to go into the temple. We can assume that this movement was not unusual in his life: He lived a life of worship. Anna “never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying.” She lived a life of worship. I suggest that this stance in their personal lives prepared them to recognize Jesus when he came. They could live by the end of all things in their own context, because they lived in the presence of God, who sees the end from the beginning.

How can we do the same? We participate in communal worship, and we engage in personal and private worship. We pray together, and we pray when we are alone. We spend time hearing God’s Written Word read aloud, and we spend time reading alone. The world is telling us its story all the time – a story of injustice and distress, a story of unfairness and darkness, a story intended to drive us to despair and to act selfishly and greedily in our own lives. We respond by spending time dwelling in God’s story, learning to recognize God’s presence in every situation, even in “this present darkness”. When we see God, we can rejoice.

We know this truth well enough. Let me illustrate with a simple example from my own life. Lois and I have been married for over 43 years. Even before we were married, we knew that we both loved to play Scrabble. We have been playing games of Scrabble – one after the other – for over 43 years now! When we finish one game, the tiles go back in the bag and we draw to start a new game. The board is open on our dining room table as I speak this morning.

Sometimes I draw good tiles, making it easy to find high scoring plays. Sometimes I draw bad tiles, making it hard to find anything to play. When I draw good tiles, all is sweetness and light. When I draw bad tiles, I may complain ever so slightly for just a moment. Well … maybe for more than a moment and maybe not so slightly. Once in a while, Lois suggests that we just stop playing while I calm down.

I don’t want to complain about difficult tiles – it detracts from the pleasure of playing the game, but it has become a deeply ingrained habit. How do I change that habit? Not by saying, “Stop it!” Not by complaining that I complain too much! The only way I know to break a pattern of acting or feeling that I don’t want is to replace it with a new and better pattern. The only to break a bad habit is to replace it with a new good habit. If you have similar struggles, you know what I mean. You can’t stop losing your temper with a driver who cuts you off by telling yourself to be nice, but you can learn new ways to respond when something happens that you don’t like. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes God’s Spirit working in you to give you the ability to keep going. But you and I can change; we can become people who live by God’s standards all the time.

Some Examples

I think of communities that have tried to incarnate God’s Reign in their lives together on earth. Reba Place Fellowship in Chicago is one such. Since 1957, a number of people have gathered together in intentional communities to encourage and support each other. In the process, they have experienced social struggles and personality conflicts and charismatic revival. What marks them, in my estimation, is their persistence in seeking to create new patterns of kingdom behaviour in place of the patterns that characterize Chicago as a whole.

I think of revival movements (as we sometimes call them) such as one that broke out at Asbury College and Seminary in the 1970. It lasted for several years and transformed lives quite remarkably. I was able to see the effects of the revival in my own student experience at Asbury Seminary over 20 years later. What marked the revival most, in my estimation, is the way that God moved in the hearts and lives of those who were waiting for God to enter their lives.

[As a sidelight, I would add that you cannot “plan” a revival. I have been in many such services, when people have tried to coerce God’s Spirit into doing what they think they need. It doesn’t work that way. We wait for God to move in our lives – and like Anna and Simeon we rejoice when God comes down.]

I think of a missionary friend who grew up in a broken home and left home to join the navy. He lived a rough and difficult life, rebelling against all that we would see as good. His lifestyle led him to the end of his own resources, and through a Christian friend he found new life in Christ. I knew him in Zimbabwe as an adult. He was unfailingly cheerful, facing difficult situation with grace and humour. I only discovered how difficult his early life was when I read his life story, written by his wife. What marked him, in my estimation, was the way that new patterns and new life were so deeply ingrained in him that the old ways were completely squeezed out.

What’s the point? We are on the road to God’s Kingdom. This Christmas Sunday, we have come to the end of Advent, from where we can see our destination. We see Jesus, the baby and the Son of God. Jesus is the Messiah, the Saviour of Israel. Jesus is also our Messiah, our redemption. We give ourselves to Jesus individually and corporately. We worship him together and individually. And we work out the implications of this corporate and individual relationship by living out God’s Reign in our lives.

As C.S. Lewis puts, “Aim for Heaven, and you will get earth thrown in. Aim for earth, and you will get neither.” Jesus brings Heaven down to us, and we embrace him and his reign on this earth.

 

Christmas Sunday          Steinbach Mennonite Church          27 December 2020

Focus: Walking the road of revelation results in overwhelming joy. The waiting is over. Jesus has come! We rejoice in the incarnation—God in the flesh—God with us!

Going Deeper Questions:

·         How do we celebrate “God With Us”? Which celebrations mean the most to you?

·         How can we connect our Christmas celebration with daily life?

·         How can we keep the good things we say at Christmas from becoming bromides, nice things that we say but they don’t really mean anything?

·         How can we help those who simply cannot rejoice in this season?

Texts

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

¹⁰ I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. ¹¹ For as the soil makes the young plant come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

62 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her vindication shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. ² The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. ³ You will be a crown of splendour in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

 Luke 2:22-40

Jesus presented in the temple

²² When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord’), ²⁴ and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: ‘a pair of doves or two young pigeons’.

²⁵ Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. ²⁶ It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷ Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, ²⁸ Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

²⁹ ‘Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. ³⁰ For my eyes have seen your salvation, ³¹ which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: ³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.’

³³ The child’s father and mother marvelled at what was said about him. ³⁴ Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, ³⁵ so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

³⁶ There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷ and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying. ³⁸ Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. 

³⁹ When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰ And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.

As Familiar as it Gets

The Great Commandment, as we call it, is close to our hearts. As Mennonites, we probably pay more attention to this love command than we do to the Great Commission. Love God and love others. What could be better? These verses are our favourites, as familiar to us as our own family names – as familiar as it gets. Yet somehow the point of the command eludes us.

We are indeed Mennonites – Conference Mennonites to be sure. Not MB, or EMC, or EMMC, or CMC, or any of those other Mennonite groups that came out of us; nor are we Amish or Swiss Mennonite, or BIC, or Haldeman. Come to think of it, if Mennonites emphasize love so much, why have we divided into so many groups? Perhaps this love command is harder than it sounds. Somewhere in the process our love – for God or for the other – breaks down. We want to examine this breakdown this morning, reflecting on this oh so familiar text.

Psalm 90

Our Psalm this morning locates our love for God and for other within God’s steadfast love for us. Paradoxically, it pairs God’s love for us with our pain, “Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us and as many years as we have seen evil.” The point is not that God seeks to hurt (for our own good, as our parents might have said); rather, God loves us in good times and in bad times and God’s love sustains us whatever happens around us.

Before we can talk about how we love God, we must remember that God loves us. God is always there, at every stage of our lives and in whatever situation we face, extending out arms of grace and love to carry us forward.

Matthew 22

The saying of Jesus that we read this morning comes near the end of a series of controversies between Jesus and the Pharisees. Two weeks ago, I preached on the idea that true thankfulness flows from putting on God’s character. Last week, Lee explored the difficult passage telling us to give Caesar what is Caesar’s and God what is God’s. Lee suggested that the deep implication of Jesus’ controversies with the Pharisees is that he challenges them at the level of allegiance. Do they really give their full selves to God, or do they use their passion for Torah Law to continue to order their own lives?

In the verses we read, the Pharisees return to the attack, after the Sadducees had taken their turn in a dispute over resurrection in the verses between Lee’s verses last week and ours this morning. This time, their question is simple: “What is the centre of Torah Law?” Jesus responds with “Love God, and love your neighbour.” This was a continuing question in Jesus’ day, and the Pharisees had their own rabbis who had given similar answers.

One famous exchange was with the Rabbi Hillel:

One famous account in the Talmud (Shabbat 31a) tells about a gentile who wanted to convert to Judaism. This happened not infrequently, and this individual stated that he would accept Judaism only if a rabbi would teach him the entire Torah while he, the prospective convert, stood on one foot. First he went to Shammai, who, insulted by this ridiculous request, threw him out of the house. The man did not give up and went to Hillel. This gentle sage accepted the challenge, and said: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!” (From Chabad.org)

You see how much like the Golden Rule Hillel’s response was. Jesus gives a fuller answer but in the same general direction: Love God; love your neighbour. In Luke’s gospel, the saying leads to the question, “Who is my neighbour?” This leads in turn to the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Matthew, the pharisees have no follow up. Instead, Jesus challenges their categories by reciting Psalm 110 and asking them how the Messiah – the anointed One of God – could be David’s Son and David’s Lord at the same time.

Wrestling with these Texts

Lee and I have talked together about these texts. In our conversation about Matthew 22, Lee pointed out that the human tendency is to look for a loophole that gets us off the hook. In this case, the loophole is contained in the command. “Love God”: that’s clear and we would all agree that we should love God. “Love your neighbour”: that’s also clear and we would all agree that we should love our neighbour.

When we bring them together, however, we run into problems. What if my neighbour is not only hard to love, but also actively opposed to God? Can I love God and love God’s enemy at the same time? This instinct to find a loophole is deeply held in the human race. As a pacifist, I have described to my friends the way I understand Jesus’ call to peace. Often, my friends will respond with some dilemma that they think falsifies the call to peace. “What would you do if someone broke into your house and threatened your wife? Would you not protect her in any way you could?” What my friends have done is try to find a loophole, so that Jesus’ call to peace does not apply to them.

Children have mastered the art of loopholes. When our sons were young, we were convinced they would grow up to be lawyers. They found the loopholes in all our rules, and they even drew up their own family contract, which they were equally adept at deconstructing. That’s what people do: We find the loophole.

In this case, the problem is that loving God and loving neighbour are each hard to do on its own. When we combine them, they are impossible to do fully. Our overwhelming love for God will make us intolerant of those who don’t measure up to God’s standards, or our overwhelming love for our neighbour will make us rebuke God for judging them. To love both at the same time with our whole being is impossible.

In Luke’s parallel passage, one listener grasped the problem and asked, “Who is my neighbour?” He was looking for a loophole, and Jesus closed the loophole with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Matthew, Jesus follows up the impossible command with an impossible identity. “The Messiah is the Son of David, but how can David’s Son be David’s Lord?”

The problem that arises in our text demands a solution. If Jesus tells us to love God and love our neighbour, and if loving both fully is impossible, what is our solution? What do we do? The answer is found in Jesus’ further words about the Messiah. This reference to Psalm 110 is important. No other verses from the Old Testament are quoted as often as these verses about the Messiah, David’s Son and Lord. They contain an impossible truth: The Messiah is David’s Son; and the Messiah is David’s Lord.

This inner puzzle reflects the central Christian doctrine of the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus is the son of Joseph and Mary. He was a human child and grew into an adult like any of us. Jesus is also the Lord of Joseph and Mary. He is (in Paul’s words), “the image of the invisible God.” Who better than the impossible God-man to help us fulfill an impossible command?

The Through Line

You have heard of TED talks. One expert tells how to do a good TED talk: “There’s a helpful word used to analyze plays, movies, and novels; it applies to talks, too. It’s ‘through-line,’ the connecting theme that ties together each narrative element. Every talk should have one.”

His point is simple – effective communication is going somewhere. The “through-line” tells you where it’s going. What is Jesus’ through-line? Matthew records a series of controversies, in which Jesus disputes with the religious leaders. What’s his point? What is the overarching through-line that holds these controversies together? Once we answer that question, you should be able to tell what Lee and I have been preaching about for the past three weeks.

Consider the undressed wedding guest. He wanted to remain in control of his own life. Consider the saying about Caesar and God. God wants all of us – heart, soul, and mind, not just part of us. In today’s passage, Jesus shows that we can love God and neighbour only if we belong completely to God. The through-line is the question of allegiance and ownership. Who do you belong to? Who do you give full allegiance to? Who runs your life?

Jesus asked these questions of the pharisees and other religious leaders over and over again. Jesus asks us the same question. Who runs your life? Who do you owe allegiance to? Who gives you your identity here on earth?

Towards an Application

What does it look like to love God and love our neighbour? What does this life look like – giving everything to God and only giving Caesar what God permits? How do we do it? I like Ron Sider. Twenty years ago, he preached at Missionfest Manitoba, and he came to SMC and preached to us. He has an annoying tendency to hold on to both sides of the impossible command. He counsels an absolute love for God. In a book called One-Sided Christianity, he writes that if he could do any one thing over in his life, it would be to invite more people to follow Jesus. He describes the conversion of a Jewish activist against apartheid in South Africa before the days of majority rule. After this young man asked Jesus into his life, Ron said that he walked around his hotel room singing praises to God. Just as Jesus tells us that the angels in glory sing for joy when a lost child is found, so also Ron sang for joy. I know Ron, and I know that he loves the Lord.

Ron has also given his life to love for neighbour. Such love looks so much like social activism that people accuse him of selling the gospel out for social activism. Ron’s response is that loving others is simply expressing our love for God. Our love for God is central, and we express it by loving others. We have no time to fight with those who disagree with us. We’re too busy loving them. Because Ron has written publicly about the dangers of voting for Trump, some American church leaders have said that he is demon-possessed. (Bear with me. It’s a ridiculous charge, but they made it anyway.) In his reply, Ron embraced them as Christian brothers with whom he disagrees. He expressed his readiness to take communion with them and refused to condemn them for their political positions – or even for their attacks against him.

Ron has his faults, but I appreciate his desire to love God and to love others. He would agree that these commands are too hard for us – as commands. Perhaps instead of calling this the Great Commandment, we should call it the Great Invitation. Instead of thinking that we have to try really hard to love God, and then turn around and try even harder to love a difficult neighbour, perhaps Jesus is inviting us to accept his presence in us.

He is our older brother, and he is our Lord. He is the one who hurts with us and who lives in us. He is the one who dies with us and rises with us. He is the one who gives us life, a life of perfect love. If you try to keep this great commandment yourself, it will break you. If instead you hear the voice of Jesus inviting you into a new life, filled with God’s Spirit, you will find that you can step into love beyond measure, God’s love overflowing for all people.

Conclusion

Paul wrestled with the same dilemma we have been describing in Romans 7 and 8. In chapter 7, he says essentially, “When we try to keep this command in our strength, we will fail every time. We know what to do, but we just can’t do it.” In chapter 8, he gives the clincher, “What the law (you and I acting in our own abilities) cannot do, God does in us.”

⁵ Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ⁶ The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

Who do you belong to? Who runs your life? Where does your ability to do anything come from? It is easy to spiritualize what I am saying and think that we just need to pray more and everything will be all right. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying that you can pray your way out of bad situations, or that you if you just love God, everything will be all right.

Paul said it better than I can: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to do God’s good purpose.” We work at loving each other. We work hard at loving difficult people who are also our neighbours. We do our best, “with fear and trembling”. We do so because God is at work in us. We love others because we love God. We love because God pours out God’s love in us. God’s Spirit released in us accomplishes what we cannot do on our own, and we keep the impossible command.

Focus: Often quoted, the greatest and second commandments (as outlined by Jesus) provide us with ethics, direction, hope, understanding, and identity. We often receive them as invitations to “be” a certain kind of person or to “do” specific kinds of things. Love is indeed something we need to practice, but is it something we can ever accomplish?

Going Deeper:

1. Love of God and neighbor can seem impossible, and yet Jesus identifies them as the heart of the Gospel. How do we reconcile such commands with our inability to live up to their goals?

2. What is the difference between loving God and loving our neighbor? What do they look like?

3. Think of a time when you were loved. What did it look like? What was it really about for you? Was it something that was did, or was it more like a gift, an expression of Jesus among us?

4. How can we say that this command means that we should love people who do bad things, such as the soldiers turning Palestinian peasants off their own land, or the terrorists who kill innocent children in an attack on a defenceless community, or the callous policeman whose actions lead to the death of an ordinary unoffending person? How do we love in the presence of evil actions?

Steinbach Mennonite Church

25 October 2020

Texts

Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17

God’s Eternity and Human Frailty

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. ² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

³ You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” ⁴ For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. ⁵ You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; ⁶ in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

….

¹³ Turn, O Lord! How long?  Have compassion on your servants! ¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,  so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. ¹⁵ Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us,  and as many years as we have seen evil.

¹⁶ Let your work be manifest to your servants,  and your glorious power to their children. ¹⁷ Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,  and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands!

 Matthew 22:34-46

The Greatest Commandment

³⁴ When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵ and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶ “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷ He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The Question about David’s Son

⁴¹ Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ⁴² “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” ⁴³ He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, ⁴⁴ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? 

⁴⁵ If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” ⁴⁶ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.