Christ Among Us, Showing Us Faith

Last Sunday, Paul introduced us to the concept of covenant through the lens of repentance: metanoia (a change of mind); shuv (turn around, return). It’s an important theme. Paul calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12) and to have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2, 1 Corinthians 2: 16). Thank you, Paul, for reminding us to turn from our self-centeredness to orient our lives around Christ.

Today, the conference materials remind us that this same Christ is among us and shows us the way of faith – an unwavering trust in God (which is, of course, the result of turning around and renewing our minds in Christ). We have two Scripture passages that show us this idea of faith, so we turn to them.

Genesis 17

The story in Genesis 17 is a curious one, with two basic parts. Abraham is now 99 years old, and Sarah his wife is 90. The story makes it clear that they were too old to have any children, but the second basic part of the story is a promise from God that Sarah and Abraham were going to have a baby. I can imagine our children’s response if Lois and I told them that we were trying for another baby – disbelief, shock, concern that we might have lost our minds.

Abraham and Sarah responded as our children might. In the verses we read, Abraham falls on the ground laughing at the idea. ROTFL, we might say. Sarah’s turn comes in Genesis 18, when three men (messengers from God) tell them again that she will have a baby. She scoffs at the idea, and that the men tell her that the child will be named “Isaac” – which means “laughter” or “s/he laughs”. Scorn and absurdity turn into joy and laughter.

The first part of the passage that precedes this prediction of Isaac’s birth is the use of circumcision as a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah. God stated that God would make Abraham’s family into a great nation with their own land. They were wandering nomads with no place to call their own home, and they would become not just a people, but a “multitude of nations” with their own place to call home. This promise has become a vision of our own lives as Christians – wanderers in this world on our way to “the promised land”, the new heavens and new earth, the new creation which we receive in Christ (2 Corinthians 5). In response, God asked Abraham to circumcise all the males in his family as a sign that he and his family had given themselves completely to God.

In verses 18 to 27, Abraham first reinterpreted God’s promise of a son to mean Ishmael. God said, “No. I mean it: Sarah will have a son, Isaac. Ishmael has his place too, but I mean Isaac.” So Abraham took Ishmael and all of his male slaves and circumcised them, and this action became the marker of what it means to belong to God’s People. I am not sure immediately what to do with this, so we turn to Romans to work out our next step.

Romans 4

Paul wrote the book of Romans to explore the place of Jews and Gentiles in God’s reign. The church at Rome was probably started by believers in Jesus who had been at Pentecost, described in Acts 2. This led to a Jewish Christian church, but given their location in Rome, they soon became a church of Jews and Gentiles mixed together.

One commentator suggests that this mixture was changed when the Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome in the mid 40s. A church that had combined Jew and Gentile together in one body became a primarily Gentile church. Claudius evidently felt that Jews – especially those who had also become Christians – were stirring up trouble, and sent them out of Rome for a number of years. Then they filtered back into the city and resumed their lives in Rome, and therefore also in the church at Rome. The trouble is that the church was no longer sure how to combine Jew and Gentile in one body. This situation was a local variation of a problem that faced the whole of the New Testament Church, and Paul deals with it in depth in Ephesians 2. This situation also provides a clue for what is going on in the book of Romans.

In chapter one, Paul greets the Romans and proclaims his devotion to the gospel of God’s saving power for all people. He then observes that all people – Jew and Gentile – need God’s saving power. In chapter two, he looks first at the Gentile world and then at the Jewish world, saying again that God’s grace is available to all – Jew and Gentile. Both need God’s grace, and both can receive God’s grace by being “circumcised” inwardly – a commitment of the heart rather than an outward physical act.

Chapters three and four then show how faith in God fulfills this inward circumcision, where the law could not. Paul argues that Jews have had the blessing of the Law and that Gentiles now can join them through faith. In fact, as the verses we read say, Abraham had acted by faith in the first place, so that the path to God’s salvation, to reconciliation with God, was always a matter of trusting in God with the heart, an inward circumcision.

Synthesis

Abraham’s readiness to circumcise the men in his extended family (immediate family and the men who worked for them) was a sign of his faith in God’s covenant. The way that Genesis 15 puts it (another covenant passage), he believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness – quoted in Romans 4. Obeying the command to circumcise his family was a sign of faith. We are also part of God’s people, and we also find ways to make our commitment of faith visible to ourselves and to the world around us.

The Brethren in Christ of my youth had observable visible symbols of our covenant with God and the church. For example, we dressed in a distinctive way. Women wore head coverings that looked like an inverted bowl made of gauze. The stated reason for this covering was Paul’s words that women should cover their heads when they pray, and also as a sign of respect for the angels (1 Corinthians 11). It’s a curious passage, but it almost certainly did not mean that we needed a kind of official church uniform. Somewhere in the 1960s, members of the BIC decided that women could wear a simple hat to church and did not need the more elaborate covering.

There is a lot we could say about 1 Corinthians 11, and we just won’t. I am happy to elaborate on it during the Living our Faith time after the service. It is enough for the moment to observe a positive function that the covering played. It meant that when a woman decided to join the church, she had to decide also if she was willing to be a full part of the community, accepting the authority of the community even in the way she dressed.

Men had our own plain dress that acted like a church uniform. One result was that when a BIC man or women went shopping in town, everyone knew that they belonged to the church. Sometimes when we think that people don’t know who we are, we are tempted to act in ways that we should not. We might lose our temper, or take something that does not belong to us, or in some other way act badly. But when you had the head covering on or were wearing the plain coat, everyone knew you were part of the church. It acted to remind us of who we belonged to.

The negative side of these practices was a kind of legalism that undercut the positive effects, and I’m glad that we gave up our church uniform in the 1950s and 1960s. But I do miss the benefit of wearing my identity as a follower of Jesus on my sleeve, so to speak. Do you think we can have the benefit without the legalism of the past? I think we can.

Living Out Our Faith

Paul suggests that Abraham demonstrated this applied faith. Listen again to Romans 4:

¹⁹ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰ No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²² Therefore “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” ²³ Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone ²⁴ but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, ²⁵ who was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Abraham believed God’s promise of an heir. Paul tells us that our corresponding belief is belief in God who raised Jesus from the dead. This belief locates us in the season of Lent, in the 40 days of preparation for Holy Week, in which we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the badge that we wear, which marks us as Christians. How do we live this out?

Next Sunday’s sermon picks up this idea, asking what Christians should look like, so I have to tread carefully here. I don’t want to end up saying now what I want to say next week! For today, then, I want to focus on the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In all of God’s interactions with Abraham and Sarah, God was creating a fuller and greater reality than they could imagine. The promise of many descendants expanded their horizons. In God’s interactions with us, God is also creating a new reality. We live in a world that defines success by power and wealth. People put their trust in their ability to control others and get what they want. God calls us instead to put our trust in Jesus, the one who died and rose from the dead. Our culture puts its trust in self-love; God calls us to put our trust in self-giving love.

Lent

We are in the season of Lent, the 40 day period that prepares us for the cross. Lent is modelled on Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, also given in the gospels as lasting 40 days. Jesus was tested by Satan in order to prepare him for his ministry, culminating in the cross. When we give up something for Lent – chocolate or Facebook or whatever we choose, we do so to prepare ourselves to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

Jesus gave himself for us. Jesus shows us that God’s essential nature is self-giving love. When we take up our own cross and follow Jesus, we follow him in this path of self-giving love. We give ourselves to God on behalf of the world around us.

Some of our own Mennonite people still wear a distinctive dress, almost like a kind of physical circumcision – a visible sign that they have given their lives to God and to God’s people. We don’t have such a physical sign at SMC, but we do seek what Paul calls the circumcision of the heart – a sign of our covenant with God, a sign of our willingness to take up our cross and walk with Jesus.

That inward sign is self-giving love. Lois and I were talking with each other recently about friends of ours who have fostered a number of children over the years. They have opened their homes and their hearts to children in difficult circumstances. When you do that, you will almost inevitably experience the children’s problems yourself, and it won’t feel good. But you let them into your lives as a sign of God’s love and care for them; you give them a chance for God to work in their lives and give them new hope.

We have many examples from our own congregation of people who give themselves to others – providing rides to people, providing comfort and help to people, using their talents and abilities to make the world they live in better. I am encouraging us all to build on these examples and to allow God’s love to change us from within as we place our faith in the crucified and risen Christ.

May God give to us “circumcised hearts”, an inner volition, an inner will that seeks to follow Jesus in all our relationships with the world around us.

Genesis 17:1–17

The Sign of the Covenant

17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. ² And I will make my covenant between me and you and will make you exceedingly numerous.” ³ Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, ⁴ “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ⁵ No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. ⁷ I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. ⁸ And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding, and I will be their God.”

⁹ God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. ¹³ Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

¹⁵ God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. ¹⁶ I will bless her and also give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” ¹⁷ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”

Romans 4:13–25

God’s Promise Realized through Faith

¹³ For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴ For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵ For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.

¹⁶ For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, ¹⁷ as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ¹⁸ Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So shall your descendants be.” ¹⁹ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰ No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²² Therefore “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” ²³ Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone ²⁴ but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, ²⁵ who was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Questions: What does Faith ask of us? How does living in faith shape our thoughts and actions? The Old Testament Jews had circumcision as a sign of faith; what do we have?

Focus Statement: Abraham and Sarah believed God and oriented their lives to God’s will; we also orient our lives to God’s will every day.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Lent 2 February 25, 2024

A Patient Ferment

The title of this sermon comes from the title of a book by Alan Kreider. Kreider describes the process of growth by which the early church moved –almost irresistibly – from an insignificant group of people on the margins of the Empire to the established religion of the Empire.

When we remember what the first church was – a small group rallying around an unknown Jewish Rabbi, it is more than a little surprising that within 300 years it became the driving force of the Roman Empire. What happened? The New Testament tells the story of the first church. In Acts 17, Paul and Silas’ opponents in Thessalonica call them “these men who have turned the world upside down” (NKJV). The NIV renders the same phrase as: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world”. In any case, they were highly active and they demanded a response. They were the sort of group that one might expect to take over the Empire!

That all changed under persecution. The Roman Emperors recognized a threat to their authority, and they responded vigorously. First Nero, then Domitian (followed by others) sought out Christians to kill them. The book of Revelation may reflect persecution under Domitian. Persecution waxed and waned for about 250 years between the time of Nero and the time of Constantine. During this period, church worship moved underground, and yet the church continued to grow steadily, irresistibly. Why?

Kreider describes the process with these two words: “patient ferment”. The growth was like fermentation in the process of making bread. It is a quiet, almost invisible, process, but it moves with remarkable power. The word “patient” refers to the virtue of patience, which Christians of this period saw as vital to their lives. They did not respond to persecution with efforts to defeat their enemies, but with a patient embrace of God, of each other, and of their enemies. This patience formed the bedrock of their lives as they embraced the way of Christ without asking if it would prove to be effective against the Roman Empire. They knew that God’s resurrection power was at work in their lives, regardless of external circumstances.

What does all of this have to do with our texts? What does all of this have to do with our lives today? We walk through the texts together and then return to the patient ferment of the early church as a guide for our lives today.

2 Samuel 5

My theme this morning is that the church grows best when it is outwardly weak. The passage in which David was made king seems to say the opposite. David began as a shepherd in Bethlehem and then became a servant in King Saul’s house. He rose to prominence as a military leader under Saul, which earned him Saul’s enmity. He spent the next several years on the run, an outlaw chief of an outlaw band. When Saul died, Israel’s elders installed David as King. He was 30 years old when he became king and reigned for 40 years. When he was made king, he established Jerusalem as his capital. Verses 6 to 8 tell how he conquered Jerusalem and made it his own.

David was “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), chosen by God to replace Saul. Under his son, Solomon, Israel became a regional power. A mark of Jesus as the Messiah of God was that he was “Son of David”. The last verse of our text notes: “[David] became more and more powerful, because the LORD God Almighty was with him.” We could almost think that this story intends to illustrate how to be strong and good, but ….

But indeed. Remember that stories in the Bible tell us what happened. It is a common mistake to assume that “is” means “should be”. The way that David lived is critiqued even within the story itself. The truth is that his great contribution was to begin the family in which the Messiah would be born. All of his political and military achievements are worth less than this simple fact: The son who came from his wife, Bathsheba (a Gentile and another man’s wife), was the ancestor of the Messiah. God’s triumph, come through David’s failure.

2 Corinthians 12

In 2 Corinthians, Paul defends himself against people he calls “super-apostles” – people who claim great and wonderful religious experiences for themselves, and claim also that Paul has no real standing as an apostle because he can’t match their spiritual power and authority.

In the verses we heard earlier, Paul replies to their charges by embracing them. “You’re right!” he says. “I am as weak as you say, but not for the reason that you think.” He observes that he has had spiritual experiences to match theirs. He has had visions that have taken him into the “third heaven” and into paradise. We don’t need to know exactly what he meant by these terms. It is enough to know that he was – in human terms – a spiritual adept.

Acts 20 tells us that he also had spiritual power. You remember the incident in which a young man named Eutychus fell asleep while Paul was preaching. Paul went to him and brought him back to life. Clearly, Paul could have competed in terms of spiritual experiences and of spiritual power, but he chose not to do so.

Why not? Paul had learned that we are in fact helpless to control life. His close relationship with God and the power of God’s Spirit within him could not cure a particular problem in his own life, what he calls his “thorn in the flesh” and “a messenger from Satan”. We don’t know what it was. Speculations abound – from physical ailments to spiritual dryness, but we simply don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The point is that he realised his helplessness and weakness. That recognition released God’s presence and power in his life. “God’s power is made perfect in human weakness. When I am weak, then I am strong.” This passage shapes the way I read the account in 2 Samuel 5. This idea appears again in our gospel reading.

Mark 6

The gospel passage contains two parts. First, Jesus and his disciples arrive in Nazareth, his home town. In chapter 4, Jesus taught in parables and calmed a stormy sea. In chapter 5, he cast out demons, raised a dead girl, and healed a sick woman. People responded with wonder, gathering around him in great crowds. In Nazareth, the people responded quite differently. They say, “We’ve heard remarkable stories about this man, but we know him! He is Mary’s son. His brothers and sisters live here with us. We saw him grow up. Who does he think he is!”

Jesus responds with a proverb, “A prophet is not without honour, except in his own town.” He healed a few people, who evidently were willing to trust him to mediate God’s power to them, but then he and his disciples moved on to other places.

Second, Jesus sends his disciples intentionally into the surrounding villages. He tells them to preach the gospel of repentance and he gives them authority to cast out demons. [That is how I read verses 10 to 12.] He also tells them to rely completely on him. [That is how I read his instructions in verses 8 and 9.] If we look at ourselves, we must admit that we tend to rely on our own abilities. We plan carefully, train as well as we can, and then do God’s work in the church. Jesus makes it clear that such preparations, however important, are secondary. No extra supplies. No extra money. Just go and preach wherever they will accept you.

This second point is, I think, another example of Paul’s statement, “God’s power is made perfect in human weakness.” When we rely on human strength and wisdom to do God’s work, we fail. When we embrace our helplessness in human terms, God releases God’s power and wisdom to work through us.

The Patient Ferment of the Early Church

How does this theme of human weakness relate to the Early Church, as described by Kreider? The NT church acted in power, with miracles like the ones during Jesus’ own ministry. The first Christians were open in their proclamation of the gospel, as the book of Acts makes clear. They were a small group on the margins of the Empire, but they acted with the confidence of people who knew that God was working in and through them for the salvation of the world.

Then persecution set in. To be a Christian was hazardous. Many died in the arena, martyrs for their faith. Christians became quiet in the public square, allowing their lives to demonstrate God’s presence. Alan Kreider observes that their steady, patient obedience to Christ, lived in their human weakness, became a beacon that drew people irresistibly to Christ.

One story among many: Kreider tells how Christians living in Carthage (North Africa) responded to an outbreak of plague in their city. Around 250 AD, the plague (some form of highly contagious disease) broke out in the city. It was so bad that people put their own sick family members out in the street and left them to die. Under the leadership of their bishop, Cyprian, Christians began to treat the dying people left in the street. Risking their own lives, they treated all the sick people alike, whether Christian or non-Christian.

Their courageous love brought an end to the persecution of Christians in North Africa. Confronted with the kind of love that ignored all barriers, people realised that their impressions of Christians as enemies of the city were wrong. This active love in the face of danger unlocked people’s hearts and predisposed them to respond favourably to the gospel.

Kreider’s basic point is simple. In times of persecution, the early church grew because they loved each other and loved the world around them with God’s love. Their automatic reaction [what Kreider calls their “habitus” – we might say “habitual reactions”, i.e., their first response] to any situation was derived from the life and teachings of Christ. They lived this way consistently and patiently, all the time. Fifty years ago, Stephen Neill described their lives this way:

In those days to be a Christian meant something. Doubtless among the pagans there were many who lived upright and even noble lives. Yet all our evidence goes to show that in that decaying world sexual laxity had gone almost to the limits of the possible, and that slavery had brought with it the inevitable accompaniments of cruelty and the cheapening of the value of human life. Christians were taught to regard their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. The Church did not attempt to forbid or abolish slavery; it drew the sting of it by reminding masters and slaves alike that they had a common Master … and that they were brothers in the faith. (A History of Christian Missions, 1964, 41)

And Today?

I think that the same lesson applies to us today. Fifty years ago, the church had significant political and economic power in North America. Today, we have far less. We have moved from the centre of society to the margins. To be a Christian is to have many people assume that we have checked our brains at the door. It does no good to protest that our faith is rational and loving; many Canadians see Christians as bigoted, dumb, and out of touch with reality.

How can we change their minds? Not by arguing with them, and not by preaching at them. Apologetics is important, and organizations such as Ravi Zacharias Ministries International demonstrate the intellectual substance of Christian faith. Evangelism is important, and Operation Mobilization (among others) does well at helping Christians share their faith. But more important than anything else is a simple acceptance of our human weakness. We can own our failures and seek God’s help renewing our lives. We can embrace God’s love and develop a lifestyle of responding in God’s love to everything that happens. Like the Christians in Carthage, we can return love for hate and embrace those we most fear. Patiently, consistently, lovingly, we live the life of Christ, day by day with everyone around us. When we embrace our weakness, God’s power is released in us, and we discover the wonders of God’s grace and love in our lives.

As an illustration, I want to share a story told recently in Christianity Today (April 20, 2018). It begins with these words:

You have seen my picture a thousand times. It’s a picture that made the world gasp—a picture that defined my life. I am nine years old, running along a puddled roadway in front of an expressionless soldier, arms outstretched, naked, shrieking in pain and fear, the dark contour of a napalm cloud billowing in the distance.

My own people, the South Vietnamese, had been bombing trade routes used by the Viet Cong rebels. I had not been targeted, of course. I had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those bombs have brought me immeasurable pain. Even now, some 40 years later, I am still receiving treatment for burns that cover my arms, back, and neck. The emotional and spiritual pain was even harder to endure.

Kim Phuc Phan Thi tells her full story in a 2017 book titled, Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace. This article is a brief excerpt. She tells how she survived the bombing. The photographer took the children to the hospital after he took the picture. The doctors did not think she would survive, but she did – after 17 surgeries over 14 months. She tells us that her parents were leaders within the Cao Dai religion. Here is her description:

Cao Dai is universalist in nature. … [I]t recognizes all religions as having “one same divine origin, which is God, or Allah, or the Tao, or the Nothingness,” or pretty much any other deity you could imagine. “You are god, and god is you”—we had this mantra ingrained in us. We were equal-opportunity worshipers, giving every god a shot. …

For years, I prayed to the gods of Cao Dai for healing and peace. But as one prayer after another went unanswered, it became clear that either they were nonexistent or they did not care to lend a hand.

She was nine years old when the bombs dropped. Over the next 12 years she looked for help to deal with the crippling physical and emotional and spiritual pain she bore. She writes:

In 1982, I found myself crouched inside Saigon’s central library, pulling Vietnamese books of religion off the shelves one by one. The stack in front of me included books on Bahá’í, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Cao Dai. It also contained a copy of the New Testament. I thumbed through several books before pulling the New Testament into my lap. An hour later, I had picked my way through the Gospels, and at least two themes had become abundantly clear.

First, despite all that I had learned through Cao Dai … Jesus presented himself as the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). His entire ministry, it seemed, pointed to one straightforward claim: “I am the way you get to God; there is no other way but me.” Second, this Jesus had suffered in defense of his claim. He had been mocked, tortured, and killed. Why would he endure these things, I wondered, if he were not, in fact, God?

I had never been exposed to this side of Jesus—the wounded one, the one who bore scars. I turned over this new information in my mind as a gem in my hand, relishing the light that was cast from all sides. The more I read, the more I came to believe that he really was who he said he was, that he really had done what he said he had done, and that—most important to me—he really would do all that he had promised in his Word.

That Christmas Eve, she found herself in a small church in Saigon. The pastor spoke simply, of the gift we give at Christmas, and of the greatest gift ever given, when God gave God’s Son, Jesus. She writes that she was desperate for peace and joy to replace the bitterness and desire for death she felt so deeply.

So when the pastor finished speaking, I stood up, stepped out into the aisle, and made my way to the front of the sanctuary to say yes to Jesus Christ. And there, in a small church in Vietnam, mere miles from the street where my journey had begun amid the chaos of war—on the night before the world would celebrate the birth of the Messiah—I invited Jesus into my heart. When I woke up that Christmas morning, I experienced the kind of healing that can only come from God. I was finally at peace.

Kim Phuc still lives today with the physical consequences of that horror-filled day when the bombs rained down on her village, but she adds something of vital importance: “Today, I thank God for that picture. Today, I thank God for everything—even for that road. Especially for that road.” (As a side note to her story, she lives today in the Toronto area. She defected to Canada in 1996 and became a citizen in 1997. She has established the Kim Phuc Foundation International for healing children of war. Wikipedia quotes her from an interview with NPR as saying, “Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed. Napalm is very powerful, but faith, forgiveness, and love are much more powerful.”

There is perhaps a sense of incongruity in using this story. I have stressed that the gospel comes in a quiet way beneath the surface of the great events, so we may wonder if a story so dramatic and startling quite fits what I have been saying. Listen again to the words from that last quote: “Napalm is very powerful, but faith, forgiveness, and love are much more powerful.” The world around us depends on dramatic and destructive power, but life, the true life of God, comes silently beneath the surface. That life, full of faith and forgiveness and love, proves to be far stronger than the roar and desolation of napalm bombs. God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness, and when we discover our essential helplessness, we receive the power of God. Amen.

Grace Bible Church

8 July 2018

Texts

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10

5 All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “We are your own flesh and blood. ² In the past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the Lord said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler.’”

³ When all the elders of Israel had come to King David at Hebron, the king made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel. ⁴ David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years. ⁵ In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah thirty-three years. …

⁹ David then took up residence in the fortress and called it the City of David. He built up the area around it, from the terraces inward. ¹⁰ And he became more and more powerful, because the Lord God Almighty was with him.

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

² I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. ³ And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— ⁴ was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. ⁵ I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. ⁶ Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, ⁷ or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Mark 6:1-13

6 Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. ² When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.

“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? ³ Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

⁴ Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” ⁵ He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.⁶ He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. ⁷ Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. ⁸ These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. ⁹ Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. ¹⁰ Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. ¹¹ And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”

¹² They went out and preached that people should repent. ¹³ They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

The Drama of the New Year

Our theme this evening is of the year as a story or as  a piece of theatre, a play in which we are acting. Whether it is a tragedy or comedy, a piece of classical theatre or improv theatre is another question. Perhaps at a philosophy or theology or sociology lunch you can explore whether our lives are scripted or improvised; but for now we think of the image of the year as a play. 

 

You may have heard Shakespeare’s famous lines from “As You Like It” (Act 2, Scene 7): “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Shakespeare works his way through the infant, the student, the lover, the ages of career and family, retirement, and finally old age. But what does this play of life mean? Listen to these lines from Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5), spoken by Macbeth himself:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

That speech of course comes from someone who knows his life is about to end. We can hope that the drama of the coming year will be more than a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. 

What will happen this year? We each have a part to play, whether as one of the seven ages of a man—students and staff and faculty, we have most of these ages on the campus. But who writes our play? What does it mean? 

You remember Robin Williams, who died recently (as someone put it) of complications resulting from mental illness. He was in many movies of many kinds. I don’t watch many movies if I can help it, but I did see one with Robin Williams starring, “Dead Poets Society”. Williams’ character, John Keating, seeks to lead his class of young men—being prepped for entrance into the elite universities of America—into the deeper meanings of poetry and of life.

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, “O me! O life! … of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless … of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? Answer: that you are here; that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.” [Pause.] That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be? 

You notice how he segues from speaking of poetry into describing life as a play—“a powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse”. That description implies an author who gives the play meaning. But neither Whitman (who wrote the poem being quoted) nor Hollywood dare name the author. We can! 

C.S. Lewis has written an essay titled, “The World’s Last Night” (105-6). The title comes from a line from John Donne, “What if this present were the world’s last night?”

Writing about the Second Coming, he makes the explicit connection to the author of the play, whose work gives meaning to our small parts in the great play of life. Listen to how he puts it:

The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph. This seems to some people intolerably frustrating. So many things would be interrupted. … Not now, of all moments! 

But we think thus because we keep on assuming that we know the play. We do not know the play. We do not even know whether we are in Act I or Act V. The Author knows. The audience, if there is an audience (if angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven fill the pit and the stalls), may have an inkling. But we, never seeing the play from outside, never meeting the characters except the tiny minority who are “on” in the same scenes as ourselves, wholly ignorant of the future and very imperfectly informed about the past, cannot tell at what moment the end ought to come. That it will come when it ought, we may be sure; but we waste our time in guessing when that will be. That it has a meaning we may be sure, but we cannot see it. When it is over, we may be told. We are led to expect that the Author will have something to say to each of us on the part that each of us has played. The playing it well is what matters infinitely. 

Lewis illustrates this point with a minor character from Shakespeare’s King Lear, known only as “First Servant.” All of the characters around him—Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund—scheme and work for their own advantage, and their lives end badly. But the first servant, nameless and only on stage for eight lines, knows right and wrong. When his master is attacked, he draws his sword in defense. He is quickly stabbed to death. As Lewis says,

He has no notion how the play is going to go. But he understands the present scene. He sees an abomination … taking place. He will not stand it. His sword is out …: then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part: eight lines all told. But if it were real life and not a play, that is the part it would be best to have acted.

We don’t know the meaning of so much that happens to us, but we usually know what we should do right now. We usually know what action this present moment calls for. 

If you think that you are the author of your play this year, you will find when it’s over that the year really has been “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. The vision from Dead Poets Society is more cheering, calling you and me to write our own verse in the great play of life. But the Christian faith takes us a step further. God gives us the grace of freedom to participate, and even to write parts of some scenes; but in the end God is the author of the play. What gives our lives meaning, this semester and always, is God’s insertion of himself into the drama of our world, living and dying and rising to give us life and a reason to live. 

Knowing that, we ask God what we wants us to do—and we do it. Play your part well. Play your part with the Spirit of God leading you and energizing in all that you do throughout the year.

When Everything Goes Wrong

Isaiah 65: 17-25
New Heavens and a New Earth
¹⁷ “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. ¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. ¹⁹ I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.

²⁰ “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. ²¹ They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ²² No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. ²³ They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them.

²⁴ Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. ²⁵ The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.

Luke 21: 5-19

The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times
⁵ Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, ⁶ “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.” ⁷ “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?” ⁸ He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. ⁹ When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”

¹⁰ Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. ¹¹ There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. ¹² “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. ¹³ And so you will bear testimony to me. ¹⁴ But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. ¹⁵ For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. ¹⁶ You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷ Everyone will hate you because of me. ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ Stand firm, and you will win life.

Introduction

The Sundays in November immediately preceding Advent share a common theme—that of preparing for the End. Last week we read from Haggai and 2 Thessalonians, hearing the reminder that God’s coming at the End of All Things will shake the nations and bring in God’s reign in all its power and glory.

We said last week that the End is what gives meaning to the present, and that preparing for the End means living rightly in the present. Our texts today have similar themes. Today we build on what we said last week to explore further how we live today, when so much is wrong and God’s presence is so hard to see, given the reality that Jesus is coming again. Life is hard and full of suffering, and many people conclude that God is either not there, or God is a source of pain, not to be trusted.

Some Situations

The year was 1986. John and Jane were expecting triplets after years of trying for children. The doctor had given Jane pills to release several eggs at one time, and she conceived triplets. Then in May they were born—too early. We learned that there were actually four babies. One was still born, and the second died that first day. I was their pastor, and together we held a brief funeral and committed the small bodies to the earth. A week later the third baby died, and two weeks after that the last baby died also.

What do you say at the committal service, as you lay the body of the last baby in the grave? I had no words then. I have no words now. John and Jane have since had three more children, and they have a good family; but the losses they experienced remain. Jane told us much later that it took her several years to stop being angry with God. I don’t blame her. I thank God she and John have come through that time with their faith in God intact.

We ask, “Why should they experience such loss?” Sometimes we try to the answer the question with logic: “Medical researchers developed the treatment for infertility; they chose to use it. If God had intervened and stopped the natural processes to avoid the tragedy, on what grounds should God intervene? If we believe in human free will, when do we decide that someone should not experience the consequence of their choice?

But the question is not really a plea for understanding. The question is a cry of pain, and a plea for mercy and strength and comfort. We respond not with some attempt to answer the question, but with our presence, grieving and weeping and suffering together.

We need go no further than this year, this month—to the Philippines and Typhoon Haiyan. At last count around 3,600 are known to be dead, with up to 9 million affected by the typhoon (one in 10 of the people in the Philippines). The scale of this catastrophe is almost beyond description, and relief agencies and governments are scrambling to make any appreciable impact on the devastation there.

Again people wonder why this happened. Again we can answer with logic: Perhaps typhoons are more serious now given the problems with overpopulation we are experiencing around the world and given the impact of human activity on the climate. But the questions are not really a search for full understanding. Rather they are our humanity showing through. We cry out in pain together and we weep together. We hurt with the people of the Philippines, and we send what aid we can, because what hurts them hurts us all. And the question of why God allows such things continues to echo in the background as we struggle to deal with the hardships of life.

Our Passages

Isaiah 65 pictures the End of all things as a time when all such hardships are done away with. He does not see the End as something to do with the Second Coming, because he does not have a picture of two comings of the Messiah in his mind. You notice that Isaiah’s language pictures a revived earth, continuous with our own history. As the picture becomes clearer in the NT, we see a return of the Messiah, which brings all things to their conclusion.

In Luke 21 the disciples ask Jesus if the coming of his kingdom is at hand. Jesus replies, “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. ⁹ When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”

You heard this same note last week. Paul told the Thessalonians (who thought that the anti-Christ had come) not to let themselves be deceived. We want to jump ahead to the end and skip this life. Jesus tells his disciples “¹³And so you will bear testimony to me. ¹⁴ But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. ¹⁵ For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. ¹⁶ You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷ Everyone will hate you because of me. ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ Stand firm, and you will win life.”

We have a task to do before the End: To witness to Jesus in all that we say and do—in spite of the certainty of suffering that we face; and to stand firm whatever happens to us.

Living with the Pain of Today

So how do we live today? How do we encounter the kind of loss John and Jane faced? How do we respond when typhoons and other disasters strike? Given what we have been saying, let me suggest some simple steps.

1. The kind of opposition that Jesus describes is unlikely to come our way. We are not likely to be hauled up before the courts of Winnipeg and threatened with death if we maintain our allegiance to Jesus. But we live with constant opposition nonetheless. If you read the comments on news stories on the Internet, you often see such comments as this (in response to CNN’s report on the Typhoon):

"The Biggest Threat to all Religions…………………..Da Truth! Common Denominator between All Religions………..$$$$$$."

"What do you expect from one of the most corrupt/evil organizations that has ever been?"

"Lawyers that are willing to protect pedophiles don't come cheap."

There is a concerted effort by many people—including parts of the media—to picture religion in general as the source of our world’s evil. They would respond to John and Jane by saying, “Abandon religion! There’s nothing good in it!” They respond to the Typhoon with cynicism and abuse. Jesus says in reply: Don’t fight them, and don’t give in to them. Do what is right. Speak what is right. Stand firm!

2. So much for those who have come to hate religion, especially Christianity. But those who love the Lord can be just as bad in their way. Instead of using tragedy as a reason to attack religion, they give consolation too quickly. When Jesus said, “Stand firm”, he did not mean, “Tell people that tragedy doesn’t hurt.” When Isaiah looks forward to the new heavens and earth, he does not mean that present problems are meaningless. The Bible is full of lament that shows us how to grieve; the truth of future good does not simply remove present pain.

So we avoid false sympathy or easy answers. Present pain still hurts, and standing firm does not pretend otherwise. Let me suggest two ways that we stand firm:

·         In your own ties of suffering, walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Walk all the way through. Don’t try to shortcut the pain that we experience. If you experience the kind of devastating loss brought by the typhoon, the valley of death’s shadow will be long and hard. The experience of those who suffer from post-traumatic stress is evidence of how long and hard the valley is. Walk the whole way through it. There is no other path that comes out the other side.

·         When it comes to other people’s times of suffering, walk with them as far as you can. As Paul puts it, “Weep with those who weep. Grieve with those who grieve.” No easy answers. No false sympathy. Simply walk through the valley with those whom we know are there.

I think that you actually know all of this as well as I, perhaps better. My first Sunday preaching here was a Thanksgiving Sunday four years ago. I remember the empty seats in the middle of the sanctuary where people who had been part of one body once sat. The hurt that you felt, and that I shared that morning, was too deep to describe properly. We have experienced healing; but the path through valley of death’s shadow is long and hard.

I could name other experiences from within, but you already know them. We know within ourselves that life can be amazingly hard; and we know that the only way through suffering is the road ahead—to walk one step at a time the path God lays out for us.

3. To repeat the point from last week, we can hope, because we know the End of the story. The End of a story tells us what the beginning and middle mean. When the detective gathers the characters of the story around and identifies the culprit, everything else that happens in the story begins to make sense. As the detective unravels all the different parts of the action, you begin to see how everything fits together.

I need to know the end in order to enjoy the rest of the story, so I read the end of detective stories first—just as I watch the end of movies first. The End tells you what the rest means! When you read Isaiah 65, you see that God’s plan is for our complete health and joy. When you read Luke 21, you see that we have a hard path to walk until the End. These two realities are basic to the way that we read the story of our lives. Seen from one perspective we have the reality of suffering that so distresses us; seen from another perspective God is working out his purposes in our lives and in our world.

God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year:

God is working his purpose out, and the time is drawing near;
Nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be,
When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

March we forth in the strength of God, with the banner of Christ unfurled,

That the light of the glorious gospel of truth may shine throughout the world:
Fight we the fight with sorrow and sin to set their captives free,
That earth may filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

A Closing Word

I remember once reading a conversation with some African Christians during the apartheid years in South Africa. The White apartheid government appeared to be so strong that the struggle against it was hopeless. The African Christians were asked, “How do you keep on going in the struggle against apartheid?” They replied, “We know that God is good, and we know that apartheid is evil. What is evil cannot last in the presence of God’s eternal goodness, so we know that apartheid will die, no matter how strong it appears.”

They were right. Apartheid is gone, dead, and buried. Injustice still continues in South Africa, and the valley of death’s shadow can be a long walk indeed, but we can walk that valley with courage, experiencing the worst that life can throw against us in this world. Because we know the End of the story. We know that God wins in the End.