All Signs Point to Bethlehem: The Star

All Signs Point to Bethlehem: The Star

A sermon delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson

December 15, 2013

at Gordonsville Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia

Matthew 2: 8-11

Luke 12: 54-56 

Let us pray,

Help us to see despite our eyes

Help us to think outside of our minds

Help us to be more than our lives      

For your eyes show the way

            Your mind knows the truth

            Your being is the life.

Amen.

 

⁸ Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” ⁹ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. ¹¹ On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. ^[1]  

I was bummed when the ice fell last Saturday night and we had to cancel church because I had this great plan for Advent: four sermons looking at four different aspects of Advent, four different things that point us towards Bethlehem, four proofs in our world that Christ is King, Christ is God, and Christ's kingdom is here and now and begins again at Christmas, for that is what Advent is about, preparing us for Christmas, and that is what Christmas is about, the birth of God into this world, God born, set loose, and running around in our midst and in our hearts. So two weeks ago we talked about the prophets, and how their message was a simple one, that God is real and that God is very much in control of this his world, the world only he created and only he creates. Traditions and scripture gives us that truth, it's the typical way that the church looks at advent and Christmas. Look at the prophets and see how they point towards Jesus and Bethlehem, that is how church usually does advent, sings O Come O Come Emanuel, decorates, lights four candles, and calls it Christmas.

Since that is the typical way, some spend all four Sundays of Advent there, or they skip straight to Christmas and start talking about the cast of characters who make their way to Bethlehem. I've done both here, two years ago doing the Advent count down of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, and last year looking at Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, and the Angels singing to the shepherds, so I wanted to take a different direction this years, and after starting with the prophets, wanted to try something else with these three Sundays. I wanted to look at the rest, the other aspects of life, that point us in that Christmas direction, that teach us that Christmas truth, that head us in the way, towards that "away," in the manger. So last week I was drawn to the census, of all things, that Roman decree that makes Bethlehem the spot, Caesar Augustus, the deliverer of the Pax Romana, trying to count his subjects, that is what makes Bethlehem the spot, making the prophecy true. . . look at how the secular world and the scriptural prophecies come together, interesting, huh. . . the fact that Mary and Joseph were compelled themselves toward Bethlehem, that secular forces were at work in the birth of Christ, showing that God uses them, uses the secular too, that he has control over the secular, too, that he is working it all, important point to remember, it certainly parallels one of the important prophetic messages, God is in control, using people and systems that think, claim and believe, they have nothing to do with God. . . ha ha, as if. . . so I was going to recount some memories of  the secular parts of the Christmas holiday: Santa and reindeer, and flashing lights, Candy Canes, "the ribbons the wrappings the trimmings the trappings," the "packages, boxes, and bags" "The window the flash, the shutters the sash, the droll little mouth tied up like a bow. . . the whiskers white as snow," the Griswold's and George Bailey, McCauley Culkin nailing burglars with paint cans, Christmas songs, Run Run Rudolph, and Falalalala on the radio, and the presents, and shopping malls and gifts, the lines, the sales, the insanity, and all the things that make Charlie Brown say "good grief," yeah all that stuff, because those all give memories, and those memories fill our hearts with warmth and love, and that love points us in the direction, gives us yet another reason to look for God in this world, and to believe again in love's power to heal a broken world, at least that, and maybe for some us that much more.

I think I was delayed in giving that message just so that I could include something new in that claim. Yesterday we took Coralee to see Frozen, the new Disney Princess movie, funny place to be reminded of Christmas, but yes there it was right on a screen, never mentioning Jesus once by name, but pointing in so many ways right in the direction of him, a simple easy to understand message of love, a critique of the superficial kind of love, and giving instead a testament to the real sacrificial type of love, that screams Christ, claiming that is the only love with power, reminding us also that the real opposite and barrier to love isn't hate, but instead "fear," and that fear, can turn us inward, cold, separated, alone, all making it impossible for us to achieve our purpose and be our true selves, the true selves that love demands that we give. that the world desperately needs us to give because the magic within each one of us is needed and unique, all that in a secular kids movie. Go see it. . . it's the best Christmas sermon I've heard all year. Yes that's Christmas, the Christmas message, and it's all a part of it, all even the secular. It's there. It's here, go look.

But that brings us to today. . . and here we are today surrounded by amazing music, vibrant voices, the light of love, and the proper actualization of talent,  a glimpse of that same magic, and we are again challenged to look at another aspect of our world that draws us in, and shows us Christmas, and that is the world itself. Yes the world, the natural world, the world that God creates also directs us toward Bethlehem, to kneel before the manger. Too often has Christianity sought to ignore the truth of the natural world around us, for fear, fearing that we may find that Biblical Claims are false, hmm doesn't sound like faith, so how short sighted and fearful is that fight, especially when the Bible itself, and Jesus himself tells us to consider the things of nature so often. The history of Christianity is marred by this battle and fear, from Puritans in New England fearing going into the woods, fear of people out of the control of the community, to the Renaissance Catholic Church attempts to squash Galileo and science, to Christians today who can't acknowledge the existence of dinosaurs because of their absence from the Genesis account of creation. . . this battle between Christianity and Science has done more damage than any good it has done in protecting the truths it so desperately seeks to save. Trying to protect in our minds how God created the world has gotten in the way of the idea THAT God created the world, and what that truly means, the miracle of that truth lost in the literal. It all  causes us to exclude part of the truth that could just give us a glimpse, the glimpse, that could head us in the direction of Jesus Christ.

The biggest example is yes of course the star of Bethlehem. A star, shining in the night, with a tail as big as a kite, yes there it is:

O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy Perfect Light  

 Have you ever noticed the power of the present tense of that familiar chorus? It's as if we are still following the star, it's still proceeding, so we should follow. It guides the Wisemen in the Christmas story, but there are glimpses of that kind of truth all around us in the natural world, if we could just see it. If we could just open our eyes. Jesus himself, tells us to look though he acknowledges that we do not see. Look at Luke 12: 54-56:

⁵⁴ He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. ⁵⁵ And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. ⁵⁶ You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? ^[2]

 

How many of Jesus' parables and teachings surround him telling us to consider the natural world, be they lilies of the field, or mustard seeds, or sparrows, anything. It's there in the Old Testament as well. when you are lying beside those still waters, when you see a stream runneth over. . what do you see, when you see a rainbow in the sky?  Water and light producing color, or a promise of God?

It doesn't seem that the Bible is telling us to ignore nature, but instead is telling us how to see nature, and again it parallels the prophet message, it parallels the idea of God being in control of the secular world, too,  it states without question that God is in control, making the rain to fall, bringing life to the plants, giving breath to the animals, causing the sun to rise, again and again, each morning. . . yeah it, the sunrise itself, that it happens everyday is an amazing reminder of the complete power of God, and the truth that every morning is truly Easter morning. . . and that though the night has come, though the winter chills surround us, though another year comes to an end, though we look for hope and often can't see it, the problem is not that God isn't there, but in our eyes, the problem is in what we see, and how we see, not what is.

I've often said that original sin is not necessarily when Eve bites the fruit or when Adam does, but in the believing of the lie of the serpent, when the serpent calls God a liar, we believe it, and what does that mean for a world spoken into existence. . . how can God lie, when what he speaks is?. . .  but yet we believe that lie, and it clouds our vision it changes what we see, it changes what we think, it changes how we seem to be, but what we are has never changed, we are children of God, and Christmas reminds us of that. Let's look anew for those things that point us in the direction of that truth.

And as we seek we will know that God guides our steps, straight toward Bethlehem. . . William Cullen Bryant, and American poet, looked up and saw a bird, flying high in the sky, and in that bird he saw the Christmas star, for in that bird he saw the truth of Christ. . . and the truth of God's kingdom. . . upon seeing that bird he wrote this: I'd like to close with his words. . .

To a Waterfowl

Whither, 'midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,--
The desert and illimitable air,--
Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere:
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end,
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

God will lead our steps too, just like he did the wisemen, just like he does Bryant's bird, he'll lead us to Christ. . . it's what God does, the question is again as it's been forever, what do we do? Do we go to Bethlehem. . . and make it there with our gifts. . . or do we get side tracked by the thousand other things.  Next week we conclude the series with the last of the four things that God uses to point us towards Christmas. . . the truth of the Angel Choir, and that is the immediate all encompassing beauty of a miracle. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

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^[1]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Mt 2:8-11). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

^[2]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Lk 12:54-56). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Mom Away from Mom

Peter T. Atkinson

 

I grew up with a mom

A mom who was always there

But as I moved out to the world

She could not be everywhere

Without her close, a need with in me grew

I reached out for something, luckily I found you

 

I first met your son

We were brothers from that point on

Through him our friendship found

A home and place of solid ground

You filled a need that has now grown

A home feeling found when oh so far from home

 

You’re my mom away from Mom

Comfort compassion, support away from home

You’re my mom away from Mom

You’ve treated me just like I was your own

A blessing now it seems

An answer to a dream

Thank you so much for being

My mom away from Mom

 

Of course you don’t

Try to take the place

You’re just there

With a hug a friendly face

The support you give continues to this day

I’m so glad that I’ve gotten the chance to say

 

You’re my mom away from Mom

Comfort compassion, support away from home

You’re my mom away from Mom

You’ve treated me just like I was your own

A blessing now it seems

An answer to a dream

Thank you so much for being

My mom away from Mom

~Dedicated to Candy Dowdy

Leap of Faith

On a hillside late at night
To a group of lowly shepherds
Came a wondrous sight
Changing their lives forever.
They didn’t hesitate;
They didn’t wait;
They took a leap of faith
On that first Christmas Day.

Could an angel choir
Really set your soul on fire?
Would that be enough to hear
To rid you of your fear?
Is that what it would take
For you to make
Your own Leap of Faith?

In a foreign eastern land
To a group of magi wise,
Left all their plans
To follow a star that filled the skies.
They didn’t hesitate;
They didn’t wait;
They took a leap of faith
On that first Christmas Day.

Could a shining star
Make you travel from afar?
Would that be enough to see
For you to really believe?
Is that what it would take
For you to make
Your own leap of faith?

That child sacrificed for us all
On a cross at Calvary.
Do we today hear his call
Since He died for you and me?
We can’t hesitate;
We can’t afford to wait;
Lets take our leap of faith
On this Christmas Day

Could a lonely cross
Help you forget the cost?
Would that be enough love
Sent from God above?
Is that what it would take
For all of us to make
Our own Leap of faith?

Do we really need a sign
To change our minds?
Let’s take that leap of faith
On this Christmas day!

All Signs Point to Bethlehem: The Prophets

All Signs Point to Bethlehem: The Prophets

A sermon delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson

December 1, 2013

at Gordonsville Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia

Deuteronomy 18: 15-22

John 1: 6-15 

Let us pray,

Help us to see despite our eyes

Help us to think outside of our minds

Help us to be more than our lives      

For your eyes show the way

            Your mind knows the truth

            Your being is the life.

Amen. 

⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵ (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”)^[1]

 

So we've made it to Advent, and today begins the new Church year. We get start over, and start fresh, we get to think again about Christmas, and what Christ's coming into our world, means to our world, we get to think about what Christ's coming means in our lives, we get to think about shepherds and angels and wisemen, and whether or not there is room in our hearts, like there wasn't room in the inn, we get to think about, how humble you've got to be to be born in the middle of the night, in the middle of a bunch of animals, in the stable of that over crowded inn. We get to start singing great music, O Come O come Emmanuel, and Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus, today; we get to light the candles, we'll get to enjoy the decorated church soon, we'll get to take part in so many wonderful traditions. There are so many ways that people get ready for Christmas. In the past I've preached on the different Advent Candle themes, I preached based on Characters and Hymns last year, but this year I decided I wanted to look at all the things that point us towards Bethlehem, to all the things that make us look there, symbolically and literally, of all places, and trying to also figure out what it is we seek when we head out on our journey towards Bethlehem. What do we seek and why? That is the question of the next four weeks, figuring that if we can somehow answer that, we may just make it afterall, and bow down with the angels, and shepherds, and wisemen, there before the cradle of the newborn king.

Because it's far, and getting to Bethlehem in this world is not easy trek. I read Brer Rabbit stories with Coralee almost every night, and the one that she loved best for a while was "Brer Rabbit and the Witch Rabbit" and she, the witch, Ole A'nt Mammy Bammy Big Money, lives far, far in the middle of the swamp, and it says to get there

you have to jump some, hump some; hop some, flop some; ride some, slide some; creep some, leap some; foller some, holler some (and Coralee always adds, ride in the van some and if you're not careful you may not get there then, but Brer Rabbit he got there, and he knew cuz for all dat smoke"  

and we can too. . . for us it's similar, we head on to Bethlehem and we got to sing some and ring some, pray some and stay some; read some, and need some, give some, and live some; cook some, and look some, learn some and yearn some, seek some and speak some, bless some and rest some, and finally love a whole lot, and we might not even get there den, but then again we just might.

So this morning we take a look at the beginning, the prophets, all the voices who have been crying out in the wilderness that we should make the paths straight and stuff like that. The Isaiahs, and Jeremiahs, Elijah's and Ezekiels, Daniels and Jonahs, even Malachi, Micah, Obadiah, and Zechariah, and Old JTB himself, John. Those are those familiar and some unfamiliar names of the prophets, but what is a prophet? What is a prophet within the Old Testament Jewish Tradition? What does it mean? What is the role in the world that a prophet fills? And what does it all have to do with Jesus? The easy answer is that a prophet tells the future, and that these prophets foretold the birth of Christ, that's the ancient pagan understanding of prophets for sure. The Greeks had old Teiresias, and the egyptians had their priests and soothsayers, fortune tellers, given to looking at the flight of birds, and omens, and trinkets, the stars and such. . . The Old Testament prophets did that too, but if that is all you get from reading the prophets you are missing quite alot, and often those are the pieces, the only pieces of the prophets that we ever really read, the ones pointing to Jesus. The prophetic books of the Bible, are long some of them, weird all of them, and aren't chronologically placed in the Bible, rather they are stuck in the order of their length. . . They are also repetitive, repetitive in their difficulty, and repetitive in their message, and there are so many of them it's hard to find a place to start. Most start with Isaiah, and it is so long, that they get stuck somewhere in the middle and never go forward, or another common way to tackle the prophets is to do a little research, and skip through to the parts that preview Jesus, and forget the rest, again thinking that is the most valuable, or the only valuable part of the books.

So who are these prophets. The Old Testament reading from today previews the role, connecting it to Moses:

The Lord your God will raise up for you prophets  like me from among your own people; you shall heed such prophets. . .  

Deuteronomy is Moses' great goodbye sermon, and he is saying that God will send these prophets to be there, to fill the role of Moses once Moses is gone. So if we use Moses as a model for what a prophet is, we see someone who leads, someone who talks with God, someone who goes on a mission at God's behest. . . someone through whom God works to set his people free, creating new covenants, new standards for relationship with God and with each other. Yes a prophet is all that stuff, but sometimes more. Another great prophet from the narrative parts of the Biblical story is Samuel. Samuel works with the people to place the king, he then advises the king, he speaks to the king about what God's will is, and works as an instructor, and a voice of reason, the one voice that seems to be the limiting force of the king's power, reminding always the king, exactly from where his authority comes. Important distinction, but also not all, so then we get to Elijah. . . and we see a prophet being a fighter, fighting against the king, Ahab and his queen Jezebel and all her priests,  who no longer listen to him, instead they fight him, he fights against the changing times, often against popular opinion, often against the power structures, but again the prophet is the voice of reason, the voice of God. What we see connecting the roles of prophet from Moses to Samuel to Elijah, is that a prophet represents without fear the voice of God's truth on earth, whether that truth goes against powerful foreign occupiers like the Egyptian Pharoahs. . . whether that truth is building up a nation. . . and especially if that truth goes against that nation, having gone astray. The prophetic voice is both the hero and the bane of a nation's existence, because it like God, for God, sets free, but not in human ways which often only set the few free to oppress others, it sets all free, with the limits of law, and responsibility and truth that freedom requires. . . else falls into tyranny, and other forms of the realities of idolatry.  The most common poetic symbol for the prophet is fire because fire burns, it cleans, it restores, but its white hot flames are very real, and dangerous to those standing in the way. Fire burns through everything on the way to cleansing it. . . it is that prophetic fire. . . quite an image.

And the image fits. When you read Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the others, that is exactly what you see. You will find the harsh truth being preached to the people even if they do not want to hear it. Isaiah covers many years, so you get to see different parts of the story. You get to see the good times, then the warnings within those good times, and then everything turning bad, because there just is not repentance. The big historical scenario surrounding many of the prophetic books of the Bible is the Exile. It's the seminal event, the fall of the two kingdoms, the people being forced away from the burning Jerusalem, the end of all that had been. It is the event that the prophets from before it happens warn about, and it's the event that prophets from while it is going on, try to teach the people how to get through, and it is the event that the prophets preaching after it remind the people of, all the time looking ahead, looking ahead to the time where something more will happen, when God himself will act, not through a prophet, but more personally, more effectively, more completely, and which will last forever, Jeremiah talks of a covenant not written in stone, or in parchment, but upon our hearts. . . these are the physical parts of the message, the warnings, but what is the message of the prophets?

If you could narrow it down, and  I think you can. . . through all the repetition and hard to follow strangeness, the message of the prophets, both the large ones like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the small ones like Habakkuk,   is actually pretty simple, and it is the same throughout, as times change, only the way it is seen changes, but the message pretty much stays the same. God is in control. God is in control, not the pharoah, God is in control, not your king, God is in control, not any of the idols that you make, just in case, trying to make yourself feel better, make you feel like you have a little control, but no God is in control. And he is in control when you are standing on the shore with the pharoah's army behind you and the Red Sea in your way, when you build a Golden calf, while Moses is away lost on the holy mountain. . . He's in control when you wrest the promised lands from the Philistines, when you stand up against the Mighty Walls of Jericho, or when you are up against a giant like Goliath. . . when you ask for a king to rule you so that you can be like the other nations, God is in control, though now there is a surrogate, God is in control, when that surrogate turns aside, and the people go with him, unfaithful to God, God is in control, and most importantly, when the Assyrians and Babylonians destroy Jerusalem and carry you once again away from the land into exile and bondage, yes even then God is in control. And since God is in control, Justice will reign. . . what is sewn is what is to be reaped. It matters how you treat people, it matters what is important in your life. It matters what you worship, because the idol replacements are worthless trinkets, but people kill for them, thinking they can earn for themselves just a little bit of the security that God justly and freely provides. Since God is in control there is such thing as truth, and that truth is real, no matter what we choose to believe. . . no matter how much it hurts our conceptions of reality, and what we find to be comfortable, With God is, and God in control, truth is, and humans don't get to pick and choose what is true and what isn't. Yes this is the prophetic message, the prophetic fire, which challenges the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  And it's a big one, it's an important one. It is one that is echoed by Jesus, and it is one that is hopefully preached throughout the world on Sundays, and in and through our very lives.

So yes the prophets point to Jesus, and yes they point to Bethlehem, but they don't just do that. It's all a part of a larger picture. The ongoing consistent truth of God's presence and God's reign in this world he created. Jesus is simply the manifestation of that message. God so loving the world, that he would become a part of it just to save it, to show above all that he truly is in control, and not the things of this world, the Romans, or anyone else can stand against him, that the only tools that they have against it all is violence and death, but even that, even death is not an obstacle for God. It just isn't a factor in God's awesome reality.

Jesus shows us this. . . and Bethlehem is a part of that. So let us listen to that prophetic fire, that prophetic message, because it speaks very much to us like it did to that Old Testament audience. Though our world seems out of Control, though it seems like justice does not reign, nor matter, when it seems like the wicked thrive and the good barely survive, when it seems like science has given us the answers, and from those answers we have made technology, and from that technology we have finally taken control of this world, for better or for worse, it is ours we own it, when faith is dwindling, when kids don't care, when soccer games are scheduled on Sunday morning, when people don't say Merry Christmas, when people maul each other on Black Friday, just to get the latest idol for a few dollars less, while supplies last, when expenses rise and income stays stagnant, when rogue nations are developing atomic weapons, when typhoons and earthquakes, and low temperatures and snowstorms are on the forecast, when all this happens right before our face. . . God is in control. . . and he is heading once again towards Bethlehem to be born, so he can write on our hearts a new covenant based in that old old truth, That God is, That God is in control, and that God loves us, that though there is darkness, the prophets have foretold of a light, and it is a light that shines through even the darkest places, especially the darkness that we seem to keep choosing to drape ourselves in instead, of basking in the light.  

I'm going to give you some homework this week. At our Advent study tomorrow night we will take a look at some of the prophets, and look at how Jesus fits in. My homework for you before next Sunday is to do your best and read one of the prophetic books, one that you haven't looked ever looked at, or haven't at least in a while. It can be one of the short ones, most of those aren't read much, but read one of them. . . check it out, see for yourself how "God is in control" screams from the pages and from the prophets' mouths. Read it and talk about it with others, come back and we'll see where we go from here. It's a long way to Bethlehem, the prophets provide some preliminary direction, it's only the beginning . . . let's see what they have to say. Glory to God in the highest! And peace and good will to all men. Amen.

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^[1]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Jn 1:6-15). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

To the Angel Taken Too Soon with Pictures

Faith and Gratitude

Faith and Gratitude

A sermon delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson

November 24, 2013

at Gordonsville Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia

for The Gordonsville Community Thanksgiving Service

Luke 12: 22:32 

Let us pray,

Help us to see despite our eyes

Help us to think outside of our minds

Help us to be more than our lives      

For your eyes show the way

            Your mind knows the truth

            Your being is the life.

Amen. 

²² He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. ²³ For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. ²⁴ Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! ²⁵ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?  ²⁶ If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? ²⁷ Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ²⁸ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! ²⁹ And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. ³⁰ For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. ³¹ Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

³² “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.^[1]  

As I was thinking in the brief time I had about what to say about thanksgiving, I decided to look at the Gospel passage that I had chosen earlier this week to be a part of the service, well before I knew I'd be preaching from it. I chose it, simply because I was trying to find a "thanksgiving" passage that would match Sue Ann's choice of Psalm 100.  You'd be surprised how often giving thanks is talked about in the New Testament, but it's typically specific, like someone thanking Jesus especially for what he has just done, a healing, a miracle, a presence, just being there, or Paul thanking in one of his letters, the people of the Church in Rome or in Corinth for example, and their hard-fought steadfastness in the faith. So I picked this one, thinking what a great testament about who God is, and what he does for us, straight from the mouth of Christ himself. If this is true, if what Christ is saying is true, if these promises are true, it would certainly bee something that we should be grateful for, be thankful for, and a great reason to praise God with joyful noises, song, and clashing cymbals.

 I preached on these very verses a few months ago, and their connection to faith, how faith can be such an amazing, strength giving, life affirming piece of our existence. . . and that this well known text where Jesus talks to us about how God works, and how he provides for the needs of his creation, all of his creation, reminding us at the end, to not be afraid, and calls us a little flock, so loving, so close, so intimate, so nurturing and enduring, as parent to child. It affirms to us our special place, our special identity, our special relationship with our Creator God. Believing this, is central to our faith, and central to who we are as humans, and who not just ourselves are, but our neighbors and friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ are. . . God provides for us, yes, but for others as well. . . to this we believe, and therefore we are grateful, to be grateful just seems fitting, to give thanks just seems right.

But have you ever thought about how faith and gratitude are connected, how gratitude, giving thanks, stems directly from faith? It is all connected to how we see ourselves and how we see God. Therefore the flipside, not having faith, doubting, worrying, having a low opinion of ourselves and our neighbor is being ungrateful, ungracious, and unrecognizing of our many gifts. You see part of our gifts, part of what we can be thankful for, is ourselves. You and I, us, each of us are uniquely created gifts of God, life itself is a gift, and not just of time, but of wonder, of perfection, of care, of the very image of God.

As a teacher, I work with teenage boys, I can think of no greater issue than this one, self identity, they don't know who and what they are, they lack self knowledge, the realization of who they are as people, that they exist, that they matter, and that their "mattering" not only makes a difference in this world, but that it is the difference. The world needs them, which is why God created them, and meant for them each amazing things. Many of them don't know this, they don't know that they matter, they wonder, they think that their mattering is based on how they fit into certain boxes, how their peers label them, that their mattering is put off for until they get to college, or then until they get a job, or until they have a family. They don't see that all of it matters. And it's not just kids, it's all of us. We're surrounded by artificial things that provide for us, we become mere functionaries in systems, and we are forced to fit in some way, and if we don't fit, for whatever reason, we do not feel like we have worth. Jesus begs to differ. He screams out that it just is not true.

I believe to my heart that this issue is central to what we as Christians can and should be doing. . . spreading that Gospel message, letting people know that they are loved, and have value, that God loves people, God made people, and God provides for people, and for this we give thanks, of course we give thanks, because we believe it, but are people who don't believe it grateful or are they worried and bitter and wallowing, or rushing and hurrying, fighting, and clawing to fit somehow, by their own constantly faltering merits, afraid deep down that what they have just isn't enough to keep up?

Christians across the country do a pretty good job, not perfect by any means, but a strong effort is made to give food at the holidays, to help each other, but we often fail at the other. We fail because we are afraid to enter the arena of person building, we're afraid that we don't have the words, or the entry point, the place to start, the means to do so, the opportunities, so we just don't do it enough, but let us seek this Thanksgiving, and beyond to find ways to nurture people in the faith that God is in control, God made us, and that God made us for a reason, and that it all matters. . . that we each matter, and so we are forever grateful. I have a personal mission statement for my ministry, it has to do with what I believe it means to be human and what it means to be a child of God. . . I hope that we can work together to make it known. . . I see us connected to beach glass, you know the glass that washes up on the beach, with edges worn down, and a fresh glow, fresh value, a newly made treasure from something that had been worthless, thrown aside, left forgotten, has been restored through time, and the amazing work of the nature that God has made through love. He even take our trash and makes it new, imagine it, so I decided that I wanted to dedicate my ministry to this idea. . . here is the mission, and how I see our role as Christians in this still new millennium. . . so let us be a wet, salty, communion of former shattered, tossed aside, jagged pieces of broken glass, who have been newly and completely transformed into a beautiful rainbow of redeemed gemstones, trying to catch the eye of the rest of the wandering world, there glistening just beneath the surface of the water as the tide moves back and forth in the surf. . .  let us also thank god that we are then a part of that amazing rainbow, and give thanks for all the other people and colors that shine in the light of Christ's love and grace. We can't be a rainbow by ourselves because they need every color, each one of us beautifully reflecting the light of Christ in our own colorful and unique way, the whole spectrum. I believe this to be so, and in his name I humbly and gratefully give thanks and pray. Amen.

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^[1]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Lk 12:22-32). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Save Yourself

Save Yourself

A sermon delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson

November 24, 2013

at Gordonsville Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia

Luke 23: 33-43 

Let us pray,

Help us to see despite our eyes

Help us to think outside of our minds

Help us to be more than our lives      

For your eyes show the way

            Your mind knows the truth

            Your being is the life.

Amen. 

³³ When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [[³⁴ Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”]] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. ³⁵ And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” ³⁶ The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, ³⁷ and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” ³⁸ There was also an inscription over him,  “This is the King of the Jews.”

³⁹ One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” ⁴⁰ But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹ And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³ He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” ^[1]  

This morning is Christ the King Sunday when we celebrate, honor, and pay witness to the fact that Christ is King, now and forever. I was really surprised last week, when I looked at the lectionary reading for this week and it wasn't the follow up to last week's reading, the conclusion about the coming of the Son of Man. I was surprised because this week, today, is Christ the King Sunday, which is also the last Sunday of the Church calendar, where we commemorate Christ's Eternal Kingship, and that passage was all about the second coming, the coming of the Son of Man, bringing redemption, at the end of all the division and wars and earthquakes and persecutions and all of that stuff, we talked about last week. Christ comes in glory, out of the sky, setting up his reign for all time. It's typical that passages like that are saved and read on Christ the king Sunday, so it left me surprised, but once I looked at what the passage really was for this week, my surprise came to be pleasant because I like it. I like that on Christ the King Sunday we get to look at the way the world views the kingship of Christ because it's much different from what we claim to believe, and the attitude is much more real to us, it surrounds us,  and therefore is so much more meaningful.

One of the big truths about the way the world works is that everything has to be practical, and more than that it has to be immediate. We have to be able to connect the dots and say definitively how this is connected to that, how this was caused by that, how that is a direct result of this, and the this's and that's can be anything, as long as we can logically and within reason connect them, we understand and everything makes sense. In this simplified, small perspective view of things, that we as humans seem to fall victim to, we are in control, and we are the judges of what is true and what isn't, but again the key word is perspective, and the individual human perspective is limited, and will always be, it's part of our fallen world, it's what happens when you believe the lies of the world, you can see good and evil, but it blinds you to the truth, God is the cause and source of the all the this's and that's. Let me be more clear and less abstract.

Look at how these representatives of the world talk to Jesus at his trial and crucifixion. Pilate, who is a representative of Rome, the controllers of the world, the placers of kings. . . yeah the Romans decide who is the king of the Jews, the Roman's chose Herod, he's their puppet, not this guy, so Pilate asks, are you the king of the Jews. . . Jesus doesn't answer. . . Then he finds him to be harmless, certainly not a threat to the Roman power, just a religious nut, a fanatic, a local problem, so he gives this king over to the puppet to take a look, he does, he wants him to do miracles, Jesus won't, Herod also doesn't deal with him, sends him back, then Pilate gives him up to the people, they want him crucified. . . some kinda king right. A king can't be a victim, a king must rule, a king must act, a king must protect his own interests, a king must order people around and protect his realm, by always protecting his rule. . . That's a king, that's what we want in a king.

 That's what the Jews wanted in a king, back in 1 Samuel. The Jews ask God to give them a king, do you remember this. . . The elders come to Samuel and say: Samuel 8: 5-18

“You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” ⁶ But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, ⁷ and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. ⁸ Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. ⁹ Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

¹⁰ So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 

But a king is no rosy thing, remember self interest, practicality, and limited perspective is at the heart of all human beings, yes even kings. Look at the warning Samuel give them about what exactly having a king will mean.

 ¹¹ He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; ¹² and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. ¹³ He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. ¹⁴ He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. ¹⁵ He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. ¹⁶ He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. ¹⁷ He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. ¹⁸ And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

 

You'll call out, but get no answer, no relief. . . mostly because you'll feel safer, you'll feel safer with a king, because you can touch him and he's there, and will appear to try to solve the issues of the people, not because he necessarily cares, but because it is in his best interest to care. He will promise to save you when the trouble comes, he will promise the world, but will not deliver real help, just enough to make you feel safe. . . because the image of safety is enough to sustain the system. Kings know that, and so do the Romans because they understand the people and they understand the world. . . at least they think so. The story continues back in Samuel's day the same way as in the Romans day, and we can say it is much like this in our day, too. Continuing with v 19:

¹⁹ But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, ²⁰ so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”^[2]

 

Let us be like the other nations, it's safer, we see their kings. . . it seems to work for them, why not us?

So yeah, the world knows what a king is, and there just is no way that this Jesus of Nazareth is a king. So let the mocking begin. They put the crown of thorns on his head, they wrap him in purple, and they write in three different languages "King of the Jews." As if he could really be a king. . . as if the Jews to the Romans could have a king of any substance. . . only a puppet like Herod, no one could stand up to Caesar. . . certainly not. So they mock him, saying "Save yourself." If you are the king, "Save yourself" because that is what kings do, since time immemorial, kings save themselves.

My students have been writing papers on the attitudes of Ancient peoples towards kings, according to ancient writings. There are so many, and they all paint kings as self centered rulers who do for themselves, and if they help out the people its really about helping themselves, for with every new success comes more and more power, more and more riches, more and more glory and greatness. There is the Epic of Gilgamesh, from ancient Babylon, where the king Gilgamesh builds great walls to save his people from outside invasion, but then uses those same walls to imprison them within his tyrannical reign. The Greek king. in The Iliad, Agamemnon, power hungry, brings an army to Troy, but sacrifices the success of his army to satisfy his own selfish desires. Oedipus wants to help, wants to save, but over steps and becomes a tyrant in the process. These kings are all examples of what happens when human beings rule over each other, we become the victims of limited perspective, again and again. Kings save themselves, but yet we continue to fall victim to it because practical power is there, it's visible, we can see it, it makes us feel safe to hear someone real and in power telling us that they are on it, and everything will be ok. We allow them to become tyrants because we can see them reacting to this and doing that. . . ok at least he's trying. And it's better than nothing. Something is always better than nothing. Creon says to Oedipus, "but what if you are wrong?" and the king replies, "Still I must Rule." Doing something, anything, is better than nothing, because it pleases the crowd and calms them down. It is the image of safety.

The Cross is not the image of safety, it's not a kingly image, even with the purple vestments and the sign, and the thorny crown. There is no way to dress up the cross and make it look like Jesus is a king, and he is not saving himself. . . but he's had that chance before. A couple times, he could have done exactly that, save himself. He could have told Pilate the truth, or lied, he could have done something, he could have performed a miracle to prove himself to Herod, but he doesn't. In the desert, too, there with Satan, he could have saved himself. He surely could have turned a stone into bread, he could have jumped off the cliff and been saved, he could have bowed low before Satan and been saved, shoot, Satan even promised him the kingdom, as far as eyes could see, he could have had it all, but he doesn't. No he doesn't save himself. Jesus doesn't save himself. . . instead he saves us. He doesn't save himself, he saves us. . . not in a visible way, in a crown of thorns way, a way that turns over this world and its tangible practical immediate needs, and way that requires faith, and not faith in the illusion that we see around us, but instead in the truth that is in and around us that we don't see. Christ, Jesus, God, remembering that he is the only king, the only deliverance we need. Oh man that takes a lot of faith, sure it does. But if you look at history, and you look at the present, and you still believe that the human alternatives are better, you also have a lot of faith.

A skeptic might say, that we have 2000 plus years of Christian rule and that it has failed, and we might call that failure, God's rule, and God's failure, but no it's not, and no it wasn't, and no it isn't. It is a history of the trappings of faith, taken over and used to sustain human power structures. . . from Constantine to "In God We Trust" to "Yes we Can" it's there. . . G.K. Chesterton said it best, when he said. . . "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried." You know why it's difficult, because we all seek to do what Jesus is unwilling to do, we all seek to save ourselves we keep seeking to save ourselves, individually and collectively, we try and we fail, rather than letting Christ save us. . .

We conclude our lectionary Journey through Luke today. I'm ready, I'm ready to start over and begin Advent next week. . . but there have been some pretty intense passages, some incredible promises, and some harsh truths, and it all seems to culminate in today's and rightly it should, with the cross, but not the cross as an end, the cross as a beginning, not the false, phony and ridiculed king, mocked and beaten, hanging in effigy, but the true king, and savior of the world, Jesus the Christ.

The Romans thought it finished,

The Chief Priests thought they'd won,

They all told him to save himself,

Not thinking it could be done,

But he had other plans,

Which was the will of one,

And saved them all instead he did

At the raising of the sun.  

All praise be to Christ the King, may we believe in his rule, and that the Kingdom of Heaven is come.  The man next to Jesus says to him, "Jesus, Remember me, when you come into  your kingdom." Jesus responds, "Today. . . you will be with me in paradise." "Today." Amen.

 

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^[1]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Lk 23:33-43). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

^[2]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (1 Sa 8:5-20). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.