Blog Archives

MISSING THE MISSION? - from Sunday, September 27, 2015

9/29/2015

In sports, the best team has players focused on what they produce together, not obsessing with individual performance. In religion and matters of faith, we might miss the mission, obsessing over matters of little value or consequence to the real mission, God's will and Kingdom.

(Yes, that's Matt Duffy, third baseman of the San Francisco Giants pictured - see sermon.)

The scriptures point to similar instances of missing the mission.

In Numbers, Moses distributes the Spirit of God to the gathered elders of the Hebrew people. Moses has become fed up with leadership and decides that it's time to get the elders to take a bigger role with leading these problematic people. Apparently two elders didn't get the meeting memo and they didn't show up at the tent of meeting with everyone else. Yet when Mloses distributes the Spirit of God, and the gathered elders start prophesying, the two delinquents start prophesying, too.

Someone sees this and runs to report what's happening to Moses and his right hand man Joshua. Joshua jumps all over this and insists that Moses make them stop. Moses disagrees, saying he wished all of Israel would prophesy. Joshua badly missed the mission point on that one.

In Mark, the normally silent disciple, John, son of Zebedee, has seen someone performing healing and was appalled that they claimed to do it in the name of Jesus. John reports this to Jesus who uses this latest disciple flop for another teachable moment. Whoever is not against us is for us.

We can miss the mission, too, when we fail to realize the many ways God can advance the Kingdom, and the many people and circumstances in which that can occur.

Check out the whole message with the sermon video below, and note the downloads below the video panel.

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SERVANT: GREATNESS IN HUMILITY - from Sunday, September 20, 2015

9/22/2015

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Humility is not a value that gets built into most peoples' lives. While we may look askance at arrogance or self-centeredness, the true nature of humility often remains unexplored. Looking at the expectations of the servant, through the "capable wife" of Proverbs 31, and in Jesus' teaching to the disciples who argued over who among them was greatest, we can discover the depth of this orientation that can be empowering.

(Yes, I used the rock band's album cover.)

The extensive description of the "capable wife" that closes the book of Proverbs is an amazing inventory of skills, knowledge, determination, sacrifice, ethics, productivity, caring, and above all, wisdom.

These are the closing words of a primary text of Wisdom literature, Proverbs. Wisdom thought and literature form a rather populist interpretation of living a faithful and righteous life, and it becomes a major stream in Jewish thought. As Jews become more spread throughout the world - the diaspora, or dispersion - they are somewhat removed from the culture and society of lawful observance, ritual activities, and the like. Wisdom becomes a bridge to the values of Torah-Law without getting into its details. Even Jesus' teachings echo Wisdom - the Sermon on the Mount being a rather clear example.

The "capable wife" is the servant without comparison, more rare and more valuable than precious jewels. Her humility is noteworthy in that all of the achievements ascribed to her are not oriented toward self but toward others. In this, she becomes the personification of Lady Wisdom, Sophia, and a fitting "epilogue" to Proverbs.

Her life of serving and the call to acknowledge and praise her stand in total contrast to Jesus' disciples in Mark 9 wqho have been walking along, arguing among themselves over who is the greatest. Having failed at multiple levels in precdeding stories, one wonders how they ever thought themselves greatest when they had accomplished so little. But knowing human nature, maybe that isn't so unusual.

They never answer Jesus when he asks about the topic of their discussion. His query must have gotten them to realize how foolish they were being. Despite their silence, Jesus seems to know full well what they were debating. It's lesson time.

Taking and setting the child before them, Jesus teaches that the best or greatest must become as one of the least. (It is NOT to esteem the value of the child, just the opposite!)

Humility in the disciple of any age is a key aspect, and you can check out the whole thing with the sermon video below, and with the downloads below the video panel.

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WISDOM ALERT - from Sunday, September 13, 2015

9/15/2015

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With age, we're rather confident that we've acquired a vast amount of wisdom. Ask us anything, and we'll have a comment; we're that good, right? Yet that storehouse of wisdom can be our undoing if we're closed off from wisdom that is sacred and spiritual. Would you recognize the challenge of this kind of wisdom, or would you double-down on your own, acting like Wile Coyote and turning to your Acme Catalog?

Proverbs 1 portrays Wisdom as a woman, crying out in the streets to those who pay her no heed. She begins to chastise "the simple ones [who] love their simple ways, the mockers [who] delight in mockery, and fools [who] hate knowledge." Hmm. 'Could that be me?' we might ask ourselves. She declares her desperate desire to share with them , but is incensed by rejection. Her tone turns quite nasty: "I will turn and laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you." We might realize from our own experience how difficult it can be to change our minds when our hearts, minds, and spirits are set on a particular course. To abandon that path for a different one is exceptional. We double-down, justify, rationalize, and forge ahead.

Like Pharaoh who never relented for long when challenged by Moses to obey the will of Yahweh-God, we are prone to stubbornly clinging to our assumptions. For Pharaoh, who saw himself as a god, who commanded the wealthiest and most powerful empire in the western world, he wasn't about to let the god of the slaves, the losers, the ones who served him, tell him anything. Even after the brutal deaths of the first born and his release of the Hebrew slaves, he recovers to rally his army and give pursuit, destroying his forces when the sea collapses on them.

There is a certain point of no return where Wisdom cannot be found or heard because we're so enmeshed in our own wise designs and schemes and beliefs. Indeed, calamity is the end result, the final chapters in our own undoing.

The book of James (epistle?) also turns to the question of worldly, profane wisdom versus sacred, spiritual wisdom. "Envy and selfish ambition" define worldly wisdom. "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pur; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere."

The key word comes in the beginning of the passage: "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom." That word "humility" is one element that we lack when regarding our own wisdom. If we understand its limitations, perhaps we can open the door to the higher wisdom, that which is sacred and spiritual.

Check out the sermon video below and note the downloads below the video panel.

09-13-15-ff-answers.pdf
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FAITH IN SYNC - from Sunday, September 6, 2015

9/8/2015

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Continuing a theme from last week, getting head, heart, and hands in faithful synchronization is no small task. We can lose our way when our compass doesn't point in the right direction. Both scriptures ask how to live faithfully, keeping things in sync. Although their concerns are different, the responses are quite close.

Psalm 15 starts with a question: Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? While this psalm of entry is focused on the sacred precincts of the Jerusalem Temple, the answer lies outside the Temple. The specific instructions are rather broad, addressing the priority of conducting relationships in a particular way. Presumably, if you can get relations with others correct, you're understanding God's expectations, and are worthy for your pursuit of true righteousness.

In James' epistle, he is writing to Christians who are concerned about their standing when the imminent Day of Judgment arrives. They may have a scrupulousness that wants to avoid doing the wrong thing, creating a new kind of purity code. Their extremism seems to produce the response in James that seeks to balance the new moral purity code with an ethic of conduct and behavior. He insists on the synchronization of the purity code with an action-based, daily-lived faithfulness.

Both scriptures press the question of having the right spirituality to be found worthy by God. Both responses take pains to show that spiritual integrity only matters when it has real life application. Only in that way to reflect God's desires and the way of the Lord's Kingdom.

Check out the sermon video below (Oh, c'mon, YouTube! That thumbnail pic is just wrong) and the downloads below the video panel.

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TRUE INTEGRITY, TRUE WITNESS - from August 30, 2015

9/1/2015

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When our beliefs and our actions conflict, do we change, double down, or ignore it? God provided his people with the Torah, instructions for faithful daily living, but by Jesus' time, the Torah-Law had been compromised, manipulated, and exploited by the powerful to control others. Bringing together true integrity with true witness takes effort.

In Deuteronomy, God tries to convince his people to accept and obey his Torah-Law for faithful living, insisting that nothing be added to taken away from it. This order reflects God's knowledge of the sinful human spirit that can't resist, um, creative adaptation.

Jesus is confronted by Pharisees and scribes in Mark 7 who challenge the failure of Jesus' disciples to do prescribed ritual washing. Knowing the insincerity and lack of integrity in their question, Jesus makes no effort to be friendly by calling them "hypocrites" while citing Isaiah. (By the way, name-calling followed by a scripture quote is not advisable in most instances.) He then cites an instance where their own version of the Torah is completely apart from what the Law says.

This is a problematic position in which we might find ourselves stuck. Often this occurs with the very scripture that we cherish when we realize that our thinking and our values don't match our actions and experiences. We're prone to justifying ourselves with all kinds of qualifications to make exceptions. Consider the young woman in the picture who can hold an assault rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other. Well, I don;t know about you, but it made me scratch my head.

Jesus reminds us that what comes out of us comes from within us. The need for spiritual disciplines to ensure that our spirit has true integrity will be our best strategy for ensuring that what comes out, our witness, is true to the way of faith in Jesus, our Lord.

Watch the sermon video for more, and note the downloads available beneath the video panel.