Sermon

Sermon

October 29, 2017:  Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon

Reformation Sunday, 500^th Anniversary

It was a rough morning for James. Getting the kids up and ready for church was impossible. It was all he could do to wake them up, get them dressed, fed, teeth brushed and hair brushed. He lost his temper more than once and yelled at his kids. They finally made it out the door, and he looked down and realized that none of them had matching socks on. That’s when he lost it. He yelled the questions that some of us ask as well: Why am I doing this? Why does it matter? What’s the point of the church?

Elizabeth’s experience has been different. She grew up in the church but left as soon as she was old enough to have her own freedom. The church she grew up in didn’t seem interested in any sort of peace, justice, or reconciliation. All she saw was a congregation that mirrored the divisions and discord in the rest of the world. She didn’t go the right school and so she never felt like she belonged. She thought: Why would I care about the church, it’s just a bunch of hypocrites? Who cares about organized religion? What’s the point of the church anyway?

That’s a mighty good set of questions for us to ask on this day that we celebrate those in our tradition who were brave enough to question the status quo and reform what they saw that was broken in the church and in society. On this Sunday we remember the 500^th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

As important as this anniversary is for us, as Christians our memory goes further back that just the last 500 years. Yes, much much further back. Today we remember all the way back to a group of 12 wandering disciples, who were sitting around a table for the final meal, the last supper, with their master, their teacher, their friend, their savior. While they were eating the meal, Jesus looked up at this motley group. He looked at each one of them with eyes full of piercing truth and deep love. He knew their stories, where they had come from. Some of them used to be smelly fishermen, some used to be crooked tax collectors. Some of them were so dense that they constantly misunderstood his teachings. Others of them didn’t know when to keep their mouth shut. He looked at each one of them. He knew them all better than they knew themselves. He saw a table full of followers and doubters. That very night one of them would betray him, and the rest would deny and abandon him. He looked around the table at each and every one of them, looking them in the eye and then he said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

I am the vine, you are the branches. It’s a simple, and yet deeply profound image of unity and connection, hope and love. To this small group of his closest friends, the seed that would grow into the Church, he gives this gift of meaning and purpose, this growing spreading, fruitful glimpse of who we are called to be. Still today, he looks at us. At each and every one of us. He looks at you, at the real you, the one you keep hidden away. He looks at you and he says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” We are the individual sprigs and twigs that branch off of the one vine. The one vine. None of us is any more important than the other. None of us can be ignored or dismissed as belonging any less. He is the one vine, and all of us, twisted as we may be, are the branches.

Jesus speaks these words as an invitation. He says, “Abide in me…abide in my love…abide in me and bear fruit.” He invites us to find our connection, our purpose, our strength and nourishment in him and to bear fruit. He says whatever isn’t bearing fruit, let God remove it and burn it away. Let yourself be pruned so that what is removed can make room for more growth.

In a sense, that’s precisely what we remember and celebrate on Reformation Sunday, God’s pruning of the vine so that it would bear more fruit. Those first Protestant Reformers, folks like Martin Luther, and Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin, and countless others stood up for what they believed to be true. But their efforts were not attempts to split off and form their own churches. Division is never the goal of reformation. No, they wanted to reform the church from within. They wanted to prune what was not bearing fruit, to remold a self-serving theology and outdated hierarchy that had become more interested in power and authority than serving the needs of the world.

So they looked back, all the way back to the pages of scripture to be re-minded and re-membered and they worked tirelessly to re-form the Church in ways that were true its original purpose.

With all those different ideas floating out there, eventually efforts began to consolidate and coalesce around three main themes that they called the Three Marks of the True Church. They said these should be the goals of churches that were seeking to be true to their purpose. They said the church should be a community where 1) the Word of God is preached and heard, 2) worship and sacraments are done right, and 3) discipline and discipleship is taught. These marks of the church give us a vocabulary rooted in our heritage to answer those questions we asked at the beginning of the sermon: What is the point of the church? Why does it matter in my life?

Let’s unpack those just a bit. First, the true preaching and hearing of the Word of God. In other words, the church should be a community in which we hear the good news, where we encounter the risen Christ in what is proclaimed. It may sound like a great deal rests on the shoulders of the one who preaches (and trust me, we take this responsibility very seriously). But preaching and hearing is a two-way street. What are we hearing? How are we hearing? Are we, all of us, pastors included, open to letting the word of God shake us up and mold us into something new, or do we close our ears to anything that doesn’t conform to what we want to hear. What’s the point of the church? To proclaim itself and its own importance? Or, to share the word of God, the good news of the one who was crucified and rose agian for us. Jesus told his disciples to be cleansed by his word and to let his “words abide” in them. That’s what a community of proclamation and hearing is all about.

The second Mark of the Church is the right administration of the sacraments. In the days of the Reformation, different understandings of the sacraments were a major point of controversy. That’s another talk for another day. But for our purposes today, this theme of the reformers invites us to consider the character and purpose of our worship. What’s the point of the Church as a worshipping community? Do we gather together to be entertained or distracted? Is the service structured around our own individual experiences, how the music makes us feel, what emotions the prayers illicit, whether the children’s sermon made us laugh? Or is our worship focused on God, on giving glory to our Creator, giving thanks for the gift of freedom in Christ, following the call of the Holy Spirit to pray for the needs of our world and to follow our prayers with action? What’s the point of the church? Well, our worship and sacramental life should show our answer to that question.

Finally, the third Mark of the Church is to be a community of discipline. We may hear the word discipline and think of negative notions of punishment, but in reality “discipline” comes from the same root as “disciple.” Discipline means teaching, teaching people to be disciples, followers of Christ. As a mark of our identity, we continually ask ourselves, how are we making disciples? Are we merely providing child care or teaching our children how to put their faith in action? Do we seek to be a church that welcomes people’s questions and makes room for growing deeper and deeper, or do we ask people to turn off their brains and deny the complicated realities of their lives and settle for shallow, cheep, easy answers? Do we mold life-long disciples, through service and mission? Do we put our faith to work beyond these walls reaching and teaching one another in our community? Do we seek to live in ways that grow in stewardship, sacrificial living and giving? Do we hold one another accountable and confess the truth of our own sin and failures to live up to God’s covenant of grace? Or do we provide self-help, self-righteous, self-serving half truths? Do we structure our life together in ways that open us up each day to being molded into the image of Christ?

I know I’m biased, but I think we do a pretty good job of being faithful to these Reformed Marks of the Church in this congregation. But we still need these reminders from our past to focus our attention and energy in the right direction for years to come.

Jesus tells each and every one of us that he is the vine and we are the branches. That without him we can do nothing. But let’s be very clear here, the Church and Jesus are not the same thing. He is the vine, he alone. The church is not the vine, but rather we are the assembled community of branches, the motley crew of doubtful believers. Like that ensemble of fishermen and tax collectors sitting around the table, we gather in the presence of the one who died and be rose again for us. The church is the family of faith that is called out to serve him by serving our world in its many needs, bearing fruit together. The church isn’t Jesus, it is a tool he uses to point us to him, to connect us to him. And any time the church is tempted to confuse itself with the one who is its Lord, well, then its probably time for another round of Reformation.

What’s the point of the church? 1) To proclaim and hear the good news of the gospel. 2) To worship the Risen Lord. 3)To answer the Spirit’s call to discipleship in all of life. That’s what our Protestant forbearers taught. May our memories of them, inspire our hopes for the church today and tomorrow. To God alone be the glory!

Scripture

John 15: 1-11

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

Sermon

October 23, 2017:  Rev. Anna Fulmer

In the Christian faith, there are things that we believe and things that we do. Prayer is something that we do as Christians. Prayer is essential to the Christian life, so Jesus gives us some advice. To begin and end, there are some warnings. Jesus contrasts genuine prayer with hypocritical prayer. Hypocritical prayer is all about flattering ourselves and flattering God. Hypocritical prayer makes us look good before others, but it isn’t real. Our prayers aren’t heartfelt. They are more about making ourselves look good, rather than a relationship with God. Jesus here says to pray in a room alone, in secret, to not heap up empty phrases. But Jesus contradicts his works praying prayers in the presence of people. The very prayer he teaches us begins with “Our Father”—the Lord’s Prayer seems to be a prayer meant to be prayed with other people. Jesus’ warnings are less about public prayer and more about the intention of prayer? Why do we pray? To look good? To manipulate? Prayer has power. It can give you earthly rewards—high regard and esteem. But heartfelt genuine prayer will reward you more fully—it will give you a deeper relationship with God.

All these admonitions could make us paranoid about praying. But all I think that Jesus is saying is that when you pray, you can be honest, bold, and real with God. God knows what you need. You don’t have to have a PhD to pray. You don’t have to be a pastor to pray. Like Romans 8 says, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (8:26). Even when we mess up, the Spirit is there, ready to take the reins. And for those of us who are unsure exactly how to pray as we ought, Jesus gives us an example: the Lord’s Prayer. All of us, can pray. You don’t have to say flowery words. God is great, God is good always works. So does Jesus Loves Me. And of course, the Lord’s Prayer.

As a child, the Lord’s Prayer was the end of the Prayers of the People—which to me, felt like the longest prayer ever. The Lord’s Prayer was relief—this prayer let me know that the service is almost over. I loved praying the Lord’s Prayer—it was a way I could participate in the larger worship of my church. Yet, as I aged some days it felt like I am just saying the words without understanding and appreciating their meaning.

The Lord’s Prayer is Jewish. It’s themes, it’s wording all comes from the Jewish tradition, which makes sense because Jesus was Jewish. Daily bread reminds of the daily manna God provides the Israelites in the wilderness. Manna that was crucial to their survival—manna they could not hoard or it would go bad. A gift that they were given each day—just enough. Debt shouldn’t just remind us of the personal trespasses we commit but the monetary debts forgiven in the year of Jubilee. The year of Jubilee challenged faithful people to not hoard debts, to erase inequality, to let someone have a new beginning. In a world that was so riddle by debts and loans, to ask God to forgive our financial, spiritual, relational, communal debts is powerful.

This prayer is Jewish, but it is also rooted in the life and ministry of Jesus. As we pray the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer tells the story of Jesus’ life. Our Father, is also Jesus’ father. Hallowed be your name—we remember Mary’s rejoicing at the news of her pregnancy, Christ’s birth, and how people came from near and far to praise God, and pay the child “homage.” Thy kingdom come—in Christ birth, God did come to earth. God’s will came to show us the way on earth as it was in heaven. Christ came to announce God’s kingdom, to tell us what the kingdom of heaven was like. Christ leaned on God’s will—he did God’s will here on Earth. Give us this day our daily bread–Christ gave daily bread—bread to feed thousands of people, just from five loaves, he gave bread on the last night in the upper room. Forgive us our debts–Christ forgave debts—he forgave our debts—the sins we committed against each other and against him. As we forgive our debtors—he encourages people to forgive. He challenges Zacchaeus to forgive people’s debts and to return the money he had taken. He overthrows the money changers tables, overturning the current economic systems. And do not bring us to the time of trial—Christ entered the ultimate time of trail–death on a cross. And although Christ died on that cross, he was rescued from the evil one—he conquered evil and death. He rescues us from the evil one. Read in this way, the Lord’s Prayer is a prayer we pray to become more and more like Christ—to remember his life, death, and resurrection.

The Lord’s prayer doesn’t just help us remember. It is a challenge for us too. To pray that God’s will be done and not our own—to give up control in a society that values control, power, and prestige? That’s hard. To work for God’s kingdom on earth and not our own kingdom? To be willing to reject worldly kingdoms that exploit and dehumanize others and lift a few up—to risk rejection and suffering? That’s hard. To trust in God’s daily bread even when we have overflowing pantries? That’s hard. To forgive those who have hurt us? That’s hard. To live as Christ lives? We fall short time and time again because we are human, and it is hard.

But that’s why we pray this prayer. Because it is hard. And we cannot do it alone. We need God. We need each other. We pray because God is God, and we are not. Our will is not God’s perfect will. We need God’s will to be done because left to our own devices, the world is a mess. Division, hatred, violence, and death would win. We need God’s kingdom to come because our earthly kingdoms fall short. We need God’s daily bread—nourishment, life, and promise to remind us that God’s gifts keep us alive not our daily toil. And forgiveness. We need forgiveness so desperately. We need to forgive so desperately. Tom Long says forgiveness is like breathing—it is lifegiving, and it constant. We need to forgive as often as we breath, and we need it in order to live life fully. Just as we breath in God’s mercies every time we breath—air. We breathe out God’s mercy to others.

This prayer is the prayer I pray when no other words will suffice. When I am at the end of my rope—tired and overwhelmed, I often turn to these words. When I visit someone in the hospital, more times than not, I close with the Lord’s Prayer, and every time I do, it takes my breath away. To hear another’s voice, praying with me lifts me up. To hear someone who has long forgotten who I am, but who still knows the Lord’s Prayer—that’s powerful. It’s a prayer that unites Christians across all times and places. To imagine the priesthood of believers from all times and places praying the same prayer we are uttering today fills me with wonder and awe. I am often unsure of my own words, unsure of my own prayers, but not when it comes to the Lord’s Prayer.

Yet, I am reminded that it is not just about us when we pray any prayer, especially the Lord’s Prayer. We have to listen for God to respond. And sometimes we have to do something too. Often, the Lord’s Prayer is the signal that our praying is over, but it should be a signal I think to continue to pray—to listen for God’s response back. Prayer is not a one-way conversation. God responds to our praying—it’s just that too often we are so busy or distracted to hear the reply. So listen this day as we pray, the Lord’s Prayer, as you pray any prayer. See what God is saying back to you, what words, what phrases, what images and experiences come up. If we pray for peace, then we must look for peace, we must work for peace in the world—what God is saying back to us. If we pray for God’s kingdom to come, let’s try to look for God’s kingdom peeking in.

When the world feels darker, I need more than ever to pray, “thy kingdom come” and to look and work for the kingdom. But not alone, I need to pray, to work with a chorus of others. I need to hear young and old voices, voices from all places and times, praying with me. When we pray, we resist, we change, we grow. That my friends is hope, a sign of the kingdom to come, to daily pray for change within ourselves and in this world. Amen.

Scripture

Matthew 6:5-15

And whenever you pray do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you are praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial but rescue us from the evil one. For if you forgive others their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Sermon

October 15, 2017:  Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon

The poet Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”[i] Your one wild and precious life!

Let me tell you about Cathy. She grew up in the church. As a child her family was in worship nearly every Sunday and they made sure she was in Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, children’s choirs, you name it. When she was old enough she received a Bible like our children did this morning. Cathy was a bright kid who did well in school, and her favorite subject was science. She loved to learn all about birds and insects, plants and soil. Then one day, when she was ten years old she was in church with her family. They stood to sing the opening hymn that morning “This is My Father’s World.” At the end of the first verse she sang these words,

This is my Father’s world; I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas, his hand the wonders wrought.

For some reason, her young mind latched on to the beauty of those phrases: “rocks and trees,” “skies and seas.” These were the things that fascinated her curiosity in school, and now she was singing about them as “wonders wrought” by the hand of God. Right then, deep deep down in her gut she felt something. A sense of connection, something calling her compelling her to connect the dots, to weave together what she loved with her mind and what God wanted her to do with her life. For the rest of the day she wrestled with these thoughts and by the time she went to bed that night she knew it. She knew, clear as day, what she was going to do with her life, her one wild and precious life. When she grew up she was going to be a park ranger. She was going to study the rocks and trees, the birds and insects, so that she could take care of them and share them with others. She knew then what she wanted to do, but it was more than that. It was more than just what she wanted…it was what God was calling her to do. She followed that calling through, and for over thirty years she has served as a park ranger.

The Apostle Paul writes to a group of his friends, “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters.” Consider your own call! This church he’s writing to in Corinth is one that Paul had started just a few years before sending the letter. But it seems that he had been gone just long enough for some issues to develop in the Church. The folks in Corinth have reached out to Paul, asking him question about theology, about worship practices, about ethical issues. And our biblical book of 1 Corinthians is Paul’s long reply back to them.

There was a lot going on in that church, too much to cover in one sermon. But most of their conflicts and questions were flavored by the fact that they were a very diverse church in a very diverse port city. Some of them were Jews who had begun worshiping Jesus; some of them were Gentiles. A few of them were rich, upper class patrons; many others were poor and even destitute. Some had long linages of privilege, families that had been in Corinth for generations; some were the children of former slaves who had come to town as immigrants to start over. Some of them were Republicans, some were Democrats. As one biblical commentator puts it, that church family was characterized by “status inconsistency.”[ii] Status inconsistency. That is, they weren’t all alike, and in those days of patriarchal hierarchy society in the Roman empire, to be gathered together as a group of equals with people who the world didn’t see as equals was a very odd and unusual thing. And it was quite hard for this young church to navigate.

So in the beginning of his letter, Paul says to them “Consider your call, brothers and sisters.” Consider your calling. Think about why you are in this community. Remember how you got here in the first place.

Then he paints a pretty unflattering picture of them. Most of you weren’t wise. Most of you weren’t born into the best families in town. But God called you anyway. God chose what is foolish, and week, and low and despised, God chose you. God called you into this life together, so that your identity would be shaped by a shared life in Christ, not by all those trappings of status that the world thinks are so important.

This passage isn’t just written to that church in Corinth, but to us as well. We’re invited to read over their shoulders and listen in, because we are a part of their story and their struggle. This text invites us to consider our calling. “Consider your call, brothers and sisters.” In the New Testament, to be called by God means (most of the time) to become a member of the church. To be a Christian is to be called by God. How we experience that calling to the community of faith may be different for each of us, but we are all called to the same place, to the waters of baptism. And from those waters we are all called out to a new way of life lived together in ways that celebrate the good news of God’s grace and that seek to show Christ’s love to the word.

But over time, as the centuries passed, the Christian Church transformed from a small insignificant group of nobodies to the most powerful religious and political force on the face of the known world. Wars were fought, peoples were slaughtered and conquered all in the name of making the world Christian. In the Middle Ages the church changed how it spoke and taught about calling and vocation. Now it was only priests, monks, religious leaders who were thought to have been called by God. Everyone else were just ordinary, unimportant. But those who had been called were better, more important than everyone else.

It was into this context that the Protestant Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin burst onto the scene. They looked at the way the Medieval Church spoke about vocation or calling and saw a conflict with the truth that they read about in scripture. They turned back to the writings of Paul and other biblical sources to open things up and remind all people that they had all been called by God. This teaching became known as the “priesthood of all believers.” The priesthood of all believers. It is all of us, not just a select few, who are called to live in ways that show God’s love and grace. All of life, therefore, becomes an opportunity for following God’s call. And jobs or occupations that had previously been viewed as unimportant or lowly in society were given a new sense of purpose as part of God’s calling.

Luther famously said that if God had called you to be the person who makes barrels that will be used to transport beer, then by all means glorify God by making the best beer barrels you can. And know that “God with all his angels and creatures, is smiling’” down on you.[iii]

Unfortunately, still today, even 500 years after the Reformation, we still fall into those old traps. We still elevate on pedestal some folks in our society who serve in certain jobs and occupations as more important than others. We talk in our world today as if the only point of education is to get a job, and the only point of a job is to get as much money as you can, and the only point of money is to buy things that show how important we are. We boast, all the time, but not in the Lord. We boast in the all the wrong ways for all the wrong reasons. And we look down on those who don’t have what we have, who don’t work were and how we work, who can’t afford the things that we can, who didn’t go to the same school. But remember, Paul says, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”

And we miss the mark within the church just as much. Most of the time, we only use the word “calling” to talk about our pastors. In the years of training to be ordained as a minister, Anna and myself and Sarah Jordan (who is being ordained today) had to tell our story of call over and over again. Now, there’s nothing wrong with doing that, but there is something missing if we only ask that of a very few people. What about all of those who have stories to tell?

What about teachers, what about nurses or doctors? What is their story of call? How have they felt God moving them toward this vocation? What about computer programmers or truck drivers, what about parents or grandparents, what about scientists or engineers, what about life guards, what about lawyers or paralegals, or judges or janitors, what about accountants or managers, what about sales people or musicians, what about fundraisers or financial analysts, what about volunteers or advocates for important causes, what about spouses or caregivers for those who are sick, what about artists or authors, what about park rangers, what about you? What about you? Yes, you! What is your story of call? How have you heard God at work in your life calling you, guiding you into the community of faith and sending you out to serve in the world with your particular gifts?

“Consider your own call, brothers and sisters.” Take time to remember it and meditate on it, and celebrate it as a gift. Consider your own call! Did you run away from that calling at first, like the prophet Jonah, because you were afraid of what God wanted you to do? Are you still running away from it? Or did you drop everything like those fishermen in the boat and follow your calling immediately? Did you feel your calling early in life like Samuel, or late in life like Abraham and Sarah? Are you called to start something new, like Paul or to mentor the next generation, like Barnabas? Are you in the midst of a crisis of calling, wondering what on earth God wants you to do now? Do you have particular gifts, skills, passions, resources that God is calling you to use now in a new way? That’s what Christian stewardship is all about! Consider your own call, brothers and sisters.

The question is not if you are called, but how you are called. Not if you are called, but how! And remember the good news that is God who has called you in the first place, God who has claimed you as belonging to this family of faith, hope, and love. And God has sent you out with the promised gift of grace—God’s grace made real for us in Jesus Christ, is all that we need to follow our calling.

To God alone be the glory. Now and forever more.

[i] “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver.

[ii] Wayne Meek, The First Urban Christians, quoted by Richard B. Hays in First Corinthians, Interpretation, 7.

[iii] Quoted in “Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation,” William C. Placher, ed., 206.

Scripture

Jonah 1: 1-3

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, ‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.’ But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

Matthew 4:18-20

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen.  And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

1 Corinthians 1: 26-31

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Sermon

October 1, 2017:  Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon

World Communion Sunday

Today’s question might see like a real easy one to answer. What is a tithe? Well, simply put, it is ten percent. A tithe is a tenth of one’s income that is not kept for yourself but is given back to God, dedicated as an act of worship to be used toward the building up of the kingdom of God. What a tithe is, well that’s simple to answer. How we deal with this biblical practice of giving 10% is another matter.

It is a bit ironic to talk about money given to the church, while also celebrating the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. 500 years ago Martin Luther nailed his Ninety Five Theses to a church door in Germany protesting many errors that he saw in the Mediaeval Church…but one of the biggest, in fact the one that led to his protest in the first place had to do with money. The selling of indulgences. The church hierarchy in Rome needed some money and so they decided that the best way to bring in cash was to play on people’s fear and superstition by selling certificates that were a sort of get out of jail free card for the afterlife. They sent salesmen (called Pardoners) all throughout Europe to promote this new way of buying forgiveness. They said, if you pay us enough money, your sins will be forgiven and you will be made right with God and won’t have to suffer through purgatory when you die. Not only that, but you could also buy these indulgences for people who had already died. It was a sort of friends and family plan. Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and many others challenged this abuse of power by the church and the shallow, self-serving theology that supported this practice.

To be clear, Luther and his contemporaries were not opposed to giving money to the church for it to do its ministry. They knew from their study of the Bible that there is a clear call to live and to give generously. 10 percent of one’s income, a tithe or tenth, was a specific call found repeatedly in the pages of scripture, and they were in favor this practice. Their issue was with how they church approached questions of money and power, and how individuals understood their relationship with God through their financial gifts. You could not buy God’s favor. Grace, by definition, is not for sale!

The modern biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann identifies some main themes that run throughout the entire Bible in regard to money and possessions. A few of them are particularly relevant to our question today:

1-Money and possessions are gifts from God, and gratitude is our appropriate response. This is the great theme of thanksgiving.

2- What we think of as “our” money and possessions actually belong to God in the first place and they are only held in trust by humans. This is the great theme of stewardship that grows out of God’s gift of creation. He’s got the whole world in his hands, and it’s our responsibility to care for it and give it back to the one to whom it truly belongs.

3-Money and possessions are seductions that lead to idolatry. They evoke in us love and lust, they demand devotion and servitude, which should be given to God alone, not to things. This notion that money is not innocent but in fact is addictive and compels loyalty reminds us of the story of the golden calf…an idol built by gold to be worshipped and adored.[i]

The great Reformed theologian John Calvin said that the human heart is a “factory of idols.” That is, we are quick to produce and to manufactory powers other than God that we worship and serve. We worship our status, our success, our power, our security. We serve our jobs, our bosses, our retirement, the bottom line. Day in and day out. In ways both large and small we devote our lives to the forces of greed that we create, rather than the God who created us. In truth, of course, our whole lives belong to God, but these false gods, false idols, demand more and more and more so that we are never enough. We never have enough money, enough time, enough patience, enough joy, love, hope, truth, peace.

And so, as a gift, God gives us a guide: 10%. A tithe. Not as a way to buy our way into God’s favor. Not as a tax or a fee that we have to pay or else we will be punished. No God gives us the example of a tithe as a gift. A gift to us. I know that sounds completely backwards, but that’s what it is. Giving ten percent is a gift for us.

If we think of our money and possessions as our own—as something that belongs to us and that we have complete autonomy to spend however we want on whatever we want—then we are tempted to think of a tithe, as our gift to God, or to the church. But if we remember the truth that all that we have, all that we are, our money and possessions, our work and our world, our life and our loved ones all belongs to God then it fundamentally changes how we see the biblical language of tithing. This guidance, this number (10%) is a gift from God that grounds us in the truth. It roots us into a deeper reality, reminding us that we belong wholly and completely to God. Tithing is a real life practice that protects us a bit from the false idols of wealth and success. By giving to God, just 10% we are not giving in to the ways of the world that seek to use us for all we we’re worth and then toss us aside when they are finished. What a tithe does is orient us toward a right relationship with our money and possessions freeing us for a loving, joyful, hope-filled relationship with God and our neighbors.

This biblical understanding of stewardship reminds me of one of my favorite episodes of the Andy Griffith show. Andy and his son Opie love going fishing together, and Andy always seems to catch plenty thanks to his luck fishing rod that he’s named Eagle Eye Annie. The town mayor is jealous that Andy always catches more than him and so he tries repeatedly to buy the fishing pole from Andy, but he refuses to sell Eagle Eye Annie. It just so happens Andy’s Aunt Bee has a birthday that very same week, and for her birthday present he decides to buy her some glass jars for canning vegetables. Maybe a practical gift, but certainly not very exciting. Meanwhile Aunt Bee is walking past a store, and she sees the most beautiful bed jacket and even though she knows its silly she has her heart set on it. As the show plays out a mix up happens and Aunt Bee thinks she sees Andy buying the bed jacket for her, but he’s really just picking it up as a favor for the mayor who is buying it for his wife. So, Aunt Bee is so so excited because she thinks that she is getting this wonderful gift, just what she wants. She even tells her best friend all about it.

Well, the day of the birthday finally arrives and that morning Andy and Opie give Aunt Bee her presents. She is shaking with excitement as she opens the gift from Andy, but when it ends up being just a bunch of jars she runs out of the room to hide her tears. Andy is confused. Then Aunt Bees friend stops by to see the bed jacket, and that’s when he realizes what’s happened. So, to try and make Aunt Bee’s birthday special Andy knows what he has to do. He goes to the mayor’s house and begs him to let Andy buy the bed jacket. The mayor agrees under one condition, that Andy sells him the lucky fishing pole. Andy slips back home, and he tries to play it cool. He says, “Aunt Bee you ran off so fast you forgot to open you other present.” When she opens it up and sees the bed jacket she can’t contain her joy. She goes on and on about how special it is and how thankful she is. She picks up the phone to call her friend and tell her all about the wonderful gift.

Just then Opie walks in the room ready to go fishing with Andy, but he sees that Andy’s fishing rod isn’t hanging on the wall in its normal place. He asks his dad why Eagle Eye Annie is gone. And Andy explains that he’s sold it. Opie says, “But Paw, you said you’d never sell it.”

Andy replies, “No, I said I kept it because it gave me so much enjoyment. And I wouldn’t sell it for money, and I didn’t sell it for money. I kinda swapped it for a different kind of enjoyment. So old Eagle Eye Annie is doing jus what she did before. Even right now she’s giving me joy, real heart warming joy.”[ii]

Now, of course a biblical tithe and a fishing pole aren’t the same thing. And of course God isn’t some jealous mayor who’s trying to swindle us out of something we love. But in the story, Andy’s response to his prized possession, seeing it as a tool for joy and being willing to part with it in order to be set free for a life with more love and joy in it, is a wonderful image of what true Christian stewardship looks like. Letting go in order to be set free. Finding even more joy in the giving away of something valuable than in keeping it for ourselves.

Now, it’s easy for us to get caught up and lost in the numbers and forget that tithing is a gift to us. Is that 10% before or after taxes? Is 8% or 9% close enough? Can I just round up? We fall back into our old habits of seeking to rationalize and calculate the truth in ways that are most beneficial to ourselves. But in tithing, God invites us to let go. To let go of the fear the worry, the anxiety, the self-serving nature of how we see the world. Is it easy? No. Well the math is easy, 10% is pretty easy to figure out when you filling out that pledge card, but giving at 10% is not easy. It’s something that many people strive for and haven’t yet achieved. And that’s ok, so long as we are working at it. It is a struggle, a real sacrifice for most people. It affects the decisions that we make and even changes how we live our lives. But, I guarantee you that if you talk to one of your friends, someone in this very church who has been tithing, giving 10% for years and years, you will hear them talk about this biblical practice as something in which they find great joy, real heart-warming joy. As part of their life that has been life-giving. It’s never easy, but it truly is a gift from God, freeing us from the idols that we spend our days making and serving, and freeing us for a life of joy, gratitude, and love.

To God alone be the glory.

[i] Walter Brueggemann, Money and Possessions, in Interpretation series, 2016, 1-13.

[ii] The Andy Griffith Show, “The Bed Jacket” season 3 episode 12, December 17, 1962.

Scripture

Leviticus 27: 30-34:

All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord’s; they are holy to the Lord. If persons wish to redeem any of their tithes, they must add one-fifth to them. All tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord. Let no one inquire whether it is good or bad, or make substitution for it; if one makes substitution for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy and cannot be redeemed. These ar

2 Corinthians 8: 1-7

We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia; for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints— and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us. Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.

Sermon

September 24, 2017:  Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon

This fall our sermons are exploring words that are part of our regular vocabulary as Christians—words which we many not always be aware of their full meaning. Each Sunday we are going back to the source to examine what the Bible has to say about these terms and ideas. A few months ago I was telling one of our committees at the church about this sermon series and explaining what we are trying to do. When I asked the folks in the room what words they wondered about, what words they hear others use without always knowing what they really mean, the first person to chime in said, “What about faith? I mean, I know that’s a really important thing, I know it’s something we have or are supposed to have, but I’ve never really been quite clear on what exactly it is.” That’s our question today: What is faith?

If we’re seeking to answer that question, the scripture we just read is a great place to start. The book of Hebrews mentions the word “faith” more times than any other book in the whole New Testament. It includes this classic definition of faith: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Ok, well that clears everything up doesn’t it? Maybe for some of us, that answers the question. But for many of us, this definition alone doesn’t really explain what faith is. So, the author of Hebrews goes on to give us examples, many many examples of what faith looks like as seen in the lives of the heroes from the Old Testament. Those stories, the full biblical witness, together shed light on the meaning of faith.

So what is faith? Simply put, faith means trust. Trust. Trust that grows within a relationship. There are some people you know that you can trust without question. Some you trust with you life. Some you trust to always act a certain way. Well, as the Bible teaches, faith is trust in God’s love. Reliance, assurance, confidence, not in our own goodness but in God’s goodness.

As a great preacher once said, faith is like waking up to real life from a dream or a nightmare. A nightmare of a world in which we are all on our own and there is not goodness or love, truth or source of being beyond ourselves. To wake up from that dream can be startling, but it can also bring real clarity and honesty.

The great Reformed theologian John Calvin had a long-winded way of saying the same thing. His definition of faith is one that has been a helpful guide for Presbyterians throughout the centuries. I’ve printed it in your bulletin, and I invite to follow along. Calvin says, “We shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” [i] Did you get all that? He says faith is knowing God’s love for us with both our mind and our heart. In other words trust. Trusting God’s love.

It reminds me of the story of Cynthia Rahn that I read in the wonderful book Listening is an Act of Love. Cynthia grew up in rural Appalachia, in a poor family that lived outside of town. She was in kindergarten learning all about animals, and one day the teacher gave the class an assignment. Everyone was supposed to bring to school something that would be found in a barn. Maybe a stuffed animal of a cow or a sheep. Maybe a plastic toy farmer or tractor. Whatever you could find, just bring it in the next day and they were going to use them to build a barnyard scene for their lesson. Cynthia knew that her family seemed poor compared to everyone else and she was a little anxious and intimidated by these kind of assignments.

When she got home she did what children often do (or at least used to do), she ran off to play with her friends until it got dark. Her mom came home from work, they ate dinner, got ready for bed, and then panic struck Cynthia. She had completely forgotten the assignment. So her mother lovingly helped her look through her toys but there wasn’t a single farmyard toy anywhere in the house. No plastic horse, no stuffed cow, nothing. She started to cry and said, “I can’t go to school tomorrow and not have anything.” Her mother responded, “It’s too late. There are no stores open…you should have thought about this when you got home. You weren’t responsible. You have to go to bed now.” So full of tears and anger, Cynthia stomped off to bed.

As soon a she woke up the next day the first though in her head was that she didn’t have anything to take to school. Her mother’s job started very early in the mornings and so she would always leave the house before the children got up, but would always leave breakfast waiting for them at the table. Cynthia remembered that morning: “I went downstairs, and sitting on the kitchen table was a barn made out of notebook paper. She had taken just plain notebook paper and folded it; she folded the walls, she folded the roof, she folded the doors that opened so horses could go in and out. She had shutters on the windows. She had little steps that went up to the loft. And it was just sitting there. It was like magic. I looked at it—there wasn’t a staple in it. There was no tape. She had just folded a barn for me. I was so happy and exited when I saw that barn…I [couldn’t] believe she did that!”

Cynthia remembered what it was like when she go to school: “The other kids had bags of store bought plastic farm animals. [But] everybody was so amazed at my barn. I felt like the most special kid in the class…It made me a very happy little girl…. And I knew, too, that she cared.”[ii]

I knew that she cared. Because of this surprising experience Cynthia knew, in her head and in her heart—she knew that her mother loved her. That morning she trusted the love of this loving parent who did for her what she could not do for herself. That’s what faith is.

Faith is trust in God’s love that sets us free from our fears, free from our self-control, and free from a loving relationship with God and one another. Biblically speaking, faith is simply trust. Faith isn’t intellectually agreeing to some long list of doctrines. You’ll notice today when we welcomed a new member into our midst that we didn’t ask her go point by point through the Apostles Creed, we didn’t ask her to write an essay on predestination. We simply asked do you trust in God’s love shown to us in Jesus our Lord. Likewise, faith isn’t some decision that we make which changes God’s mind about whether or not to love us. As another theologian explains, “The gospel does not say, ‘Trust God and he will love you,’ [No] the gospel says, ‘God already loves you, so trust him.’ Faith is not a ‘work’ that save us; it is our acknowledgement that we are saved.”[iii]

Faith is not something that we do. We don’t have faith on our own, we receive it as a gift from the Holy Spirit. That’s what the Bible teaches. You can’t just decide one day to start trusting someone. Neither can you just decide to start trusting God’s love. It takes time. It takes a relationship. It’s not something you can control. It is a gift.

And the truth is, sometimes that gift is in short supply Sometimes our faith isn’t there. Sometimes our trust in God’s love is week and wavering, and we fall back into our old attempts to rely on our own goodness, our own power, our own control. There are those sleepless nights where we know there just aren’t any toy farm animals and we are going to fail.

The gospels tells a story about a father who’s son has been sick for his entire life. Worn out from his years of worry the father comes to Jesus begging for his son to be healed. In their conversation the father confesses to Jesus one of the most true statements of Christian faith. He says, “I believe, help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24). And that’s precisely what Jesus does. He heals the boy, and he heals the father’s trust in the love of God.

So if that’s what faith is (and isn’t), then I think there’s one more lingering question to ask. How do we get it? If it is solely a gift, how do we come to receive it? Just this week a friend of mine sent me an email asking this exact question. She said that she hasn’t felt a connection with God for a long long time and she wanted to know what she should do to try and reconnection with her faith.       My suggestion to her, and to anyone else who might be experiencing something similar is the same advice that a wise mentor passed on to me in my own moments of disconnection from faith. It’s pretty simple and it’s two-fold: 1) show up and 2) just do it.

1) Show up in the places that we expect to find God’s love being shown. Show up to be fully present in the friendships and the relationships where we have felt God’s love in the past. Show up in the kinds of community where others seem to have their faith nurtured and strengthened. Show up for Sunday School to learn more and more about the stories of the Bible that reveal God’s love in Christ. Show up in worship to hear over and over and over again the things we say in church—the good news of the baptismal font, that we are claimed as God’s beloved children before we ever knew it, the good news of the confession and pardon, that we are forgiven and set free by God’s freely given grace, the good news of the table that we are welcomed as honored guests to a heavenly feast even though we know we don’t deserve it. Show up in the places and with the people that the Holy Spirit promises to meet us. Show up.

2) And then, just do it. This whole faith thing, this whole business of discipleship and obedience to God’s will, all that language about using our gifts to serve God and love our neighbors. Just do it. Say the words, even if you don’t completely agree with them. Sing in the choir, even if sometimes the words you sing are ones that you couldn’t honestly speak on your own. Teach Sunday School even if the questions the children have are the same ones you still have. Just do it, and wait and see how the Holy Spirit will be at work changing you, giving you the gift of faith right under your very nose.

That long list of heroes that Hebrews describes, folks like Abraham and Moses, Rahab and David, they did some mighty amazing things, “by faith.” By faith. Not because they had it all figured out and could see the big picture, but because they trusted God’s love for them enough to show up and do it, even when they couldn’t see, because “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

[i] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, Chapter 2.

[ii] Cynthia Rahn interviewed by Adrienne Lea in Listening is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project, edited by Dave Isay, 10-12.

[iii] Robert McAfee Brown, quoted in Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 322.

Scripture

Hebrew 11 (selected verses)

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s. By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.

And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Sermon

September 18, 2017:  Rev. Anna Fulmer

Our word for today is Communion. This is our second week in our series, “Back to the Source” which was a rallying cry for the Reformers, to go back to see what Scripture says. Communion is a topic that has long been debated in churches, but how many of us know what Presbyterians believe about Communion? We might know what we DO NOT believe, but what do we actually believe? Monthly, Buz and I say the Words of Intinction, the words we say as we bread the bread and lift up the cup. We know these words—some of you might be able to say them from memory. But often, we do not know the context of these words. The Corinthians have some major problems. The rich and affluent get off work early and start early, eating and drinking until they are drunk at the Lord’s Table. The poor have to work longer hours, and so they arrive later. They have nothing to eat, and they see rich Christians with everything. There is division and factions, and Paul addresses them.

1 Corinthians 11:19-26

This Scripture is the earliest reference to Communion that we have—and in it, Paul is getting angry that people aren’t doing it right! In the early church, the Lord’s Supper was often during a larger gathering, a community meal, and we can see it has gotten out of hand. The poor are left hungry while the rich leave with full bellies. It was a Roman custom for the host of dinner parties to sit their friends close to them—these early Christians struggle with a new concept of communion and community that asks them to spend time with people who are different.

The Reformers also had struggles about communion—what it was and was not. They came from the Catholic tradition that said that the bread and cup became the very body and blood of Christ. This is called a big word, “transubstantiation.” But each of the Reformers had a different take. I think that we would have probably been one whole Protestant church if the different camps, Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinist (aka us) could have agreed on the Lord’s Supper.

Lutherans believe in “consubstantiation”—that the blood and body of Christ are presented alongside the bread and wine. Luther explained it that Christ’s presence was “in, with, and under” the bread and wine. The bread and wine are physically bread and wine but spiritually the body and blood of Christ. Ulrich Zwingli, the leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, thought of Communion as a memorial meal—that the bread and cup were just symbols. He argued that Christ’s body was in heaven, and this meal was to “remember Jesus and what he asked his disciples to do.”[1] Luther and Zwingli debated this—Luther thought Communion, because it was Christ’s spiritual body and blood strengthen faith. Zwingli refused this idea saying that faith only came from God.

John Calvin—our Presbyterian forefather went a different direction than both. He thought Christ’s body and blood were not physically present but Christ was spiritually present. The elements were spiritual nourishment by Christ through faith. And Christ? Christ has ascended into heaven. Instead of Christ’s presence descending into the bread or cup, we are “lifted up” by the power of the Holy Spirit to feast with Christ in heaven. It’s why we say in our communion liturgy: “Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord our God.” As Presbyterians, we affirm that something holy happens in Communion, it’s not just a symbolic meal, but we can’t explain that mystery—because it is a mystery. We can’t comprehend it fully. We can never be worthy enough for the meal, and that’s why Christ lifts us up, making us worthy. And Christ is not here—Christ is in heaven; therefore, WE must be Christ’s body on earth. As Presbyterians, we emphasize that the body of Christ isn’t just bread, but that WE are the body of Christ. In this heavenly meal, we are made one with Christ, and thus are called and equipped to do God’s work in the world. And so as that body of Christ, WE are called to be broken for what breaks Christ’s heart. WE are called to do Christ’s work in the world. We are called to proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.

The Reformers met in Marburg to debate this, but each left more rooted in their own position. The arguing only got worse. Fights between pastors broke out. In Heidelberg, there was a church with two pastors. One was a Lutheran pastor, Hessus and his assistant pastor, Klebitz was a zealous Zwinglian. Obviously they did not agree about communion. Hessus in addition to being the pastor ran the local Bible college. In 1559, the assistant pastor was awarded a theology degree from the local Bible college while his head of staff and the head of the college was on vacation. The pastor, Hessus came back furious. That next Sunday he preached a sermon calling his assistant pastor a Zwinglian devil and demanded that the degree be revoked. It wasn’t. The next Sunday, as the assistant pastor lifted the cup of wine, the head pastor wrenched it from his hand. A physical fight ensued. Can you imagine me and Buz duking it out? Him calling me a devil? It would be Mayweather and McGregor right at the Communion Table! Communion was serious business.

Because of this fight, we have one of our confessions, the Heidelburg Catechism. I think Paul would have probably told these two pastors the same thing he told the Corinthians, “There are factions among you. When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, you are more focused on your theological differences than being in communion with Christ and one another.”

Maybe you want to take these words literally. But Anna you might think, this Scripture says that Jesus took a loaf of bread and said, This is my body that is for you. Jesus must have meant that was his actual body! Throughout Scripture, Jesus uses metaphor to explain who he is: think about all of the “I am” statements, Christ says, “I am the bread of life.” “I am the gate.” “I am the light of the world.” “I am the good shepherd.” “I am the resurrection and the life.” “I am the true vine.”—do we think that Jesus is literally a vine on a plant—No! This metaphor tells us something deeper about Jesus than any literal explanation could. I think Jesus would be less concerned about us believing this is his actual body, and what we were doing to be the body of Christ in the world—which makes me very Calvinist. Paul, too is more concerned here about what the church is actually doing to be the body of Christ—he is worried about the church’s theology of community, justice, and care in relation to the Lord’s Supper than their theology for theology’s sake. For our theology to have weight, it must have implications for our lives and our work in the world.

Here in Scripture, we see what Communion is and what Communion is not—Communion is not just about the meal, about the physical bread and cup. Communion is about the community as well, the relationships. The body of Christ isn’t just about Christ’s physical body—it’s about how we treat one another. As Presbyterians, we allow children to come to the Communion table. I give a Communion Training class for kids (and I will give one in October), but children can have communion whenever families decide. Jesus says, “Let the little children come,” and so we do. My parents must not have gotten that memo because my parents made up the rule that I couldn’t have communion until I was confirmed in the church—7^th grade. When you can’t have something as a child, I think it makes you want it even more. I went through the Children’s Communion Class at my church in elementary school—but didn’t get to take communion. After communion, I would take my parents small cups and stick my tongue in there, desperate for a few drops. I hear often, that children do not understand what communion means—they just think they are getting a free snack. For me, watching everyone else take communion, I yearned to be a part of it. I yearned to be included. I yearned to be accepted as part of the body of Christ. And I would argue that none of us understand what it really means—why do you think there are fist-fights about it? It is a mystery. Instead, I think we learn about Communion and about the body and blood of Christ through taking it, receiving it time and time again. And we are raising our children to be a part of the body of Christ—Communion is part of that.

But communion is not just about community, It is about memory—remembering who God is, who Christ is, and the Spirit’s presence in our world. Christ utters these words on a day of remembrance, the Passover. Memory is conveyed with ritual—in this meal we are not supposed to just remember the last Supper, but the manna and quail in the wilderness, God’s provisions and care. The jar of meal the widow shares with Elijah. The garden of Eden that God creates so that the man and woman can eat whatever they desire, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We are supposed to remember Jesus, and all of the meals he ate with sinners, tax collectors, and outsiders. How he took 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and fed thousands of people and had leftovers. How after he died, he appeared to the disciples giving them fishing advice and grilling them fish and bread. How he appeared on the road of Emmaus with disciples and how it wasn’t until he broke the bread that their eyes were opened and they recognized him. This meal, this bread should not just remind us of one moment, but ongoing story of God’s deliverance. And every time we eat, we are called to remember—not just at this holy meal. Christ uses something so ordinary, so basic, so that we will remember every time we eat bread and drink juice.

We are fed so that we can become closer to Christ, so that we can be lifted up, so that we can remember. We re-member, become members again of the household of God. That we belong to something greater and larger than ourselves. We are part of God’s story too.

Remember, we are the body of Christ. We are fed so that we can become more like Christ, helping neighbors in need, breaking down barriers, sitting at table with those that society hates, those that we love and those who will betray us. We come to table, as guests, not the host. Christ is our host. So come.

[1][1] Rogers, Jack. Presbyterian Creeds: A Guide to the Book of Confessions, (The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1985), 99.

Scripture

1 Corinthians 11:19-26

Indeed there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of your goes ahead with your own supper, and the one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed took a loaf of bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way he took the cup also after supper saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Sermon

September 10, 2017:  Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon

Karl Barth was the greatest theologian of the last two hundred years. His teachings fundamentally reshaped and reoriented the church for generations. Barth was a professor in Germany resisted the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich, and he wrote one of the strongest condemnations of the Nazi movement from a biblical Christian perspective. Years after the war, Barth was on a speaking tour in America giving lectures at universities and seminaries. At the end of one of his lectures he was receiving questions from the audience when a student stood up and asked, “Dr. Barth, can you summarize your theology in one sentence?” This was one of the greatest religious scholars ever, a hero of his generation. A man who had written so many books that it would take almost a lifetime to read them all. And this student wanted one sentence? Just one sentence? Barth thought for just a second and then he answered, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.”

As you’ve heard, this week we are kicking off a 12-week sermon series that will seek to connect us to the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation this fall. The protestant reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin and countless other men and women around Europe placed a strong emphasis on the importance of the Bible as the source and authority for making decisions in the church. “Sola Scriputra,” they proclaimed in Latin. “Scripture Alone” should be the guide as they purged the church of human traditions and medieval superstitions.

To go back to the basics, back to the source today, we have to ask, what the Bible actually is in the first place. It might sound wonderful to say that scripture is our guide, but when I open these pages, more often than not, it doesn’t read like a guide book. We talk so much about the Bible; Presbyterians are known as “people of the Word.” We parade it into worship every Sunday, we say and sing it its words each week. We structure our Sunday Schools and Bible studies here at the church all around seeking to learn more about the truths contained in its pages. Not only that, but it’s all around us in our culture as well. Every few years another controversy pops up about whether it is appropriate to use the Bible in one setting or another. Presidents, judges, and other elected officials place their hands on it when they are sworn into office. Fanatics paint its verses on signs and hold them up at sporting events or on the street corner, angry radio talk show hosts throw around its words as weapons to attack anyone they disagree with.

But what is the Bible? Well, let’s rule out a few things that the Bible is not. It isn’t a repository of all knowledge about the world. If we treat it as a science book or a history book or a cookbook we miss the point of its what it truly is.

Neither is it merely a law book, though it does contain many rules or laws as broad as the Ten Commandments and as specific as instructions what to eat, or what to wear…like no seersucker after Labor Day. I’m sure that’s in there somewhere. Some folks have certainly approached the Bible as if it were merely a book of laws to apply to all situations in life. Jesus interacted with them quite a lot. They were called the Pharisees, and they ended up condemning and conspired to kill Jesus for breaking the Bible’s laws because of who he touched and shared meals with, who he welcomed, what he ate and drank, what he did on the Sabbath, and ultimately how he showed forgiveness and grace. I recently met someone who introduced himself by saying, “Hi, I’m Bob and I’m a recovering Pharisee.” If only more of us could recover from it as well. For in light of Jesus’ resurrection, we are called to abandon our death dealing tendencies to fixation on literalistic, moralistic, self-serving readings of scripture that blind us to what God is really doing in our lives and in the world.

So then, what is the Bible? Well, one answer—a good answer—is to say, it is “the word of God.” That’s what we say each week in worship right: “The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.” But what does that even mean? The word of God? Did God write this book? Well no, of course not, it came from a printer. But the words inside it? Well, they were translated into English by a group of scholars from ancient parchments and fragments of scrolls written in Hebrew and Greek. And the truth is none of those parchments were identical to one another and some a very different as they had been edits and altered through the generations. So, another group of historical and literary scholars had to make their best educated guess as to which words to even translate in the first place.

There are no surviving original copies of any of the books of the Bible. But maybe we could say, hypothetically, that if we had access to those originals documents, those would be the word of God, right? The direct unmediated word of God? Well, I’m afraid its still a bit complicated. You see, that’s not how Christians have ever understood the Bible to have been written. There was not some direct divine authorship. God didn’t open up the brains of those who wrote the Bible, dump in the words, and then command them to write down exactly what they were told…like some ancient version of a word processor. For Muslims with the Koran or for Mormons with the Book of Mormon, there is a belief in a kind of unmediated direct revelation of the holy word in written form, but not for Christians with the Bible.

Instead, we have traditionally understood the Bible to be inspired by the Holy Spirit working in, with, through, and sometimes, in spite of the human authors who actually composed the stories, poems, letters and laws, visions and teachings of the book. Human authors with their own limited human worldviews who were nonetheless pointing to something, or someone, beyond themselves. And this inspiring, in-spiriting, God-breathing work of the Holy Spirit continued to guide those who transmitted, collected, translated and spread the scriptures through the centuries as well. Not because of the words on the page, but the one whom they pointed to.

For Christians, the Word of God, is more than merely the letters that are in print in this book. The Word of God is first and foremost not a writing or an idea or a law or a teaching. The Word of God is a person. One person. The Word of God is Jesus Christ. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” That didn’t make sense to followers of other religions. What do you mean your God speaks through the life of a human being? But that is precisely what they proclaimed. The Word made flesh. The Incarnation. Jesus Christ himself is the clearest self-revelation, of God. Which means that to know God’s word is always personal and relational. It doesn’t mean to know something, but someone. Someone who loves you more than you could every know. The one who came as no other ever has to transform the world. To know Him is to encounter truth, wisdom, and light that changes us, changes what we thought we know about God and about ourselves.

A question that is often asked, usually as a trap, is “Do you believe in the Bible?” Do you? Do you believe in the Bible? Well, an honest, faithful, Christian answer is to say, “No.” No, our faith is not in a book but in the self-revealing God, whom we encounter and discover through this book. We do not place our faith, our hope, our trust and love in the prophet Isaiah or the laws of Moses, the letters of Paul or the gospel of John. No, we believe in God’s Word made flesh. We believe in Jesus Christ, whom we meet first and foremost in the Bible. The Bible is the witness. As Karl Barth wrote (in that document condemning the Nazi’s seizure of power) “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.”[i] Jesus himself says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

Now, let’s be clear, this isn’t in any way an attack or a slam against the Bible. No, in fact it is a joyful, thankful, celebration of the true gift that it is to us. The Bible is rightly called “the word of God” because it is the witness to the Word of God incarnate, Jesus Christ. But it isn’t just one witness among many. To borrow our Presbyterian language: the Bible is “the unique and authoritative witness”[ii] to God’s self-revelation. Unique and authoritative. Without the Bible we have no access to this relational love of God in Jesus Christ. Without the Bible we have no knowledge of the author of all creation or the meaning behind the gift of life. Without the Bible we know nothing of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness, or judgement. Without the Bible we have no way to experience or relate to the truth of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for us. Without the Bible we have no church, no worship, no mission, no ministry of reconciliation, no hopeful proclamation that in life and in death we belong to God. The Bible is truly a gift of great value to the Christian community, but it isn’t an end in and of itself. As we read this morning from our Psalm, the scripture is rightly called “a lamp to our feet and a light to our path” but that path leads somewhere…to someone.

Before Martin Luther was famous for starting the Reformation, he was a trained biblical scholar responsible for teaching the Bible to students. Luther loved the Bible not as something to believe in itself, but because it presented to him the one Lord, Jesus Christ, in whom his believe was placed. Luther had a wonderful metaphor to explain this relationship of distinction and unity. Remember the story of Christmas, that we tell every year about Mary and Joseph and the angels and the shepherds (the one that Linus narrates so wonderfully in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special). The most important part of that Christmas story comes when, according to the Gospel of Luke, Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.” (Luke 2:7) Luther said that is the clearest image of what the Bible is for us. It is the manger and the swaddling cloths, which hold the Word made flesh so that we can meet him. The shepherds didn’t come to kneel before tattered pieces of cloth. No one would worship and devote their lives to serving the manger…but to the Lord who laid within it. The same is the case with the Bible. We don’t worship and serve the words written on the page, but the one Lord, Jesus Christ, who is born to us through its pages.

Friends, the good News of the gospel, the good news amidst this world full of so much darkness, so much fear and terror, tragedy and trials, the good news is that the Light shines in the darkness. The Word comes to the world, comes to us as flesh and blood. Our God doesn’t wait on us to come and find God. No, our God, choses to come to us, to seek us out to reveal God’s self to us. Our God comes to us to transform us, redeem us, forgive us, and save us. God’s truth, God’s word, God’s wisdom and revelation is always personal because it is always grounded in the person of Jesus Christ, revealed to us through the Bible. And ithis personal truth of God always leads us into more loving personal relationships with our brothers and sisters both near and afar.

The good news of the gospel is…well, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” To God alone be the glory. Amen.

[i] “The Theological Declaration of Barmen” in the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Confessions.

[ii] “The Confession of 1967” in the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Confessions.

Scripture

John 1: 1-5, 14

2 Timothy 3:14-17

John 1: 1-5, 14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.  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.

2 Timothy 3:14-17

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Sermon

September 3, 2017:  Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon

Picking the right hymn for the right occasion is an art. Thankfully we have Dr. Randy Sheets to guide us here at Spring Hill Pres in selecting hymns that fit both musically and theologically with our worship services. The words that we sing can shape our worship in profound ways. Think of the power of singing “Amazing Grace” at a memorial service, or “Silent Night” on Christmas Eve, or “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” on Easter Morning.

There’s an old story about a Baptist preacher who was not a good fit with the congregation that he served. He butted heads with all the church leaders. His sermons were long and boring. He fostered conflict but was too pompous to see his own faults. Over the years his ministry was wearing the church out. Then finally, one Sunday, at the end of the worship service he announced to the church, “Jesus has called me away from here to serve another congregation. I must listen to Jesus’ call and so because of him, I will be leaving.” Then the music director stood up and said, “Friends let us stand and sing our closing hymn, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’”

Picking the right hymn for the right occasion is an art. That’s precisely what the Apostle Paul does here in the letter to the Colossians. He is writing to a church in a time of serious conflict, but at this point in the letter he takes a break from his own words and he quotes a hymn to them. We don’t know if this was the entire hymn or just a portion of it, but presumably it was something that the Colossians were familiar with singing. Now remember, at this point, Christianity was only a few decades old, so this hymn that is all about Jesus is obviously a new song—a new hymn of worship to the risen Lord. The song may only be a few years old, but it harkens back to a deep deep well of memory, holy memory, taking the listeners/singers all the way back to the beginning of creation. Paul reminds them of the past so that these memories can help them make sense of their present.

And in those first generations of the Christian faith, there was so much new that they were trying to understand and explain. So much had changed in just a few years. Everything in their world felt different because of this one man, Jesus Christ. He had lived like no one else ever had. He had shown God’s love in ways that were so crystal clear and yet challenging to our core. He had suffered immense and unthinkable pain in his death. But then…then…something happened that was not supposed to happen. Something occurred that had never occurred in the whole history of the world. Something too wonderful to believe, too powerful to explain with mere words. Jesus, the teacher and miracle worker, the servant leader, who suffered rejection and death was RAISED BACK TO LIFE from the dead.

His followers, the first disciples, understood immediately that as incredible and miraculous as this was, it wasn’t just about Jesus. It wasn’t just that he was alive again, but that in his resurrection, the whole cosmic order of creation was changed. Death had been defeated. Sin had been conquered. And it meant that our imperfect lives, our broken world, our fractured past, present, and future, was all changed. All redeemed, and given new meaning and purpose. This wasn’t just another date in the course of history. This event, Christ’s resurrection from the dead was the moment that all of history had been moving toward. This was the point of it all. The meaning of life, the true purpose of the entire universe. It was mind-blowing, paradigm-shattering, life-changing, world-transforming. God-revealing. It was hard to explain, not because it was confusing but because it was so true and so powerful that words couldn’t do justice.

Do you remember the powerful event that captured our attention a couple of weeks ago? The solar eclipse. It took over everything: our news, our Facebook pages, our work productivity. When the eclipse was about to start I walked through the halls of the church shouting to the staff, “Eclipse break everybody! Eclipse break.” We all went outside to see it get dark…which it really didn’t here. I’ve seen it get darker from afternoon thunderstorms. But was it was truly marvelous for those further north in the “path of totality.” Here, where we were the most interesting thing to me was being able to see the shape that the sun and moon were making in their delicate dance together. But of course, we all know, you couldn’t just look directly at the eclipsing sun, could you? No you needed…eclipse glasses! The event was too powerful to behold with the naked eye, so we needed lenses through which to filter the sight in order to see and understand what was really going on.

So, to make sense of this world-changing revelation of God’s love in the experience of Jesus, the early Christians had to put on their own eclipse glasses. Their own lenses through which to filter, to examine, to glimpse and understand what was really happening. And for them, those glasses were the stories of the Old Testament, in particular, the stories that we studied from the book of Genesis. They looked back through their memories of faith, remembering in order to make sense of this new things that God was doing in the person of Christ. They borrowed from their old language to speak new truths into their present time.

They remembered the olf, old stories of God creating the physical universe, all that exists, and how it was God’s Word, in particular, that spoke creation into being. Now, they said, that’s who Jesus was, God’s Word incarnate, living and breathing, dying and rising, within the very world that he created.

They remembered the story of God molding humanity, male and female, in God’s own image. And how through our sin and disobedience we stain and scar that image in our lives. Now, they said, Jesus was not only a human created in God’s image, but he was also God’s very self, the fullness of God dwelling with us, showing us who we were created to be in the first place. The “New Adam” they called him, the one who was without sin.

They remembered the story of Cain and Abel, how death first came into the human experience and the story of Noah and the Flood when tragedy and death spread to a global scale. Now, they said, in Christ’s resurrection death does not have the final word. Death’s sting has been broken. Now, they said, death did not have victory over Christ, and through is resurrection, death will not have the final word on us, nothing in life or in death can separate us from God’s love.

They remembered the story of Abraham and Sarah, of God’s covenant made to them and the promise that through them, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now, they said, the fruit of that covenant had fully grown. The blessing of the whole earth for Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, all made one in Christ. One blessed family together.

They remembered the broken family stories of Abraham’s descendants. How Hagar and Ishmael were cast aside and unwelcomed. How Isaac was going to be put to death as a child sacrificed, how Jacob cheated his family, how Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. Now, they said, through sacrifice of God’s own son for us, God was reconciling all the brokenness of the world, God was fixing and forgiving, welcoming and mending all things in Christ.

These stories of Genesis, the old old stories of Creation and Covenant gave the church the language to express the new truth that they were experiencing as a whole New Creation. That’s what they called it: New Creation. Think about how powerful those words are. New Creation. Everything that exists, our lives, our world, the vastness of whole cosmos and every single atom all of life as we know it is the old creation, and in Christ all of it, every single thing is now new. The power of his death and resurrection changes everything. Literally everything.

And we, we who are in Christ, we who are baptized into his body the church, we who have felt his love and seen his light,, we are all now part of his New Creation. Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

And amidst all this grand and cosmic language, the truth of this new is really shown in our lives through acts of reconciliation. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ God was reconciling all things to him, and so, Paul says loud and clear, we have been charged with “the ministry of reconciliation.” We are called and commissioned, instructed and expected, to live lives that show forgiveness and peace, unity and love, truth and grace to all those in our midst.

This means that anything in our lives that is not reconciled, any one that we have not forgiven, any conflict where we are not working for peace, any group that we refuse to love and welcome, any practice we engage in that is harmful to those who are suffering, any half truth we cling to despite the pain it causes someone else, any fear that we foster which justifies division in our community…all of those places in our lives are stuck in the old creation. Trapped in the ways of death. Enslaved to the empires of greed and power. But, Paul reminds us, but you are not. You are a new creation in Jesus Christ, so let that old creation go. Let it die, so that it might be raised again in Easter light. Reconciled and redeemed.

At the close of our worship service today we will sing one of those new hymns that has made its way into our hymnal. A recent hymn written to an old old tune which wonderfully sets to music the truth of this good news:

“There is now a new creation through the grace of Jesus Christ.

Peace and reconciliation with the God of endless life.

Call the lost and found together, tell the news to everyone.

Now the past is gone forever, and a new life has begun!”[i]

[i] “There is Now a New Creation” by David Gambrell. Published in Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal, Hymn No. 774.

Scripture

Colossians 1: 15-20; 

2 Corinthians 5: 16-19

Colossians 1: 15-20

Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

2 Corinthians 5: 16-19

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

Sermon

August 20, 2017: Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon

I have a confession to make. For a few years when I was a teenager, I was a huge fan of professional wrestling. I mean I really got into it! For my friends and I, Monday nights and Thursday nights revolved around watching Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage, Rick Flair, the Ultimate Warrior, and so many others duke it out on TV. I had posters in my room, even bumper stickers on my pickup truck. We practiced their moves on each other. Only once did my little brother have to go to the hospital. One night we drove to Mobile to see these guys in person at the Civic Center. Of course, the drama was all scripted, the fights weren’t in the slightest bit realistic. And the truth is, we all knew it wasn’t real. We all knew it was fake, just entertainment. But we watched it anyway. Looking back, I’m not sure why we watched it. Maybe we watched for escape from the real-life struggles of adolescence. Maybe we watched to laugh a little at the ridiculousness of the world around us. Maybe we watched it to laugh at ourselves. Maybe it was a little bit of all those factors. All of us…well almost all of us, grew out of this phase, but I back then, we needed a little fake wrestling in our lives.

Jacob, the main character in our story today, has his own high-intensity wrestling match but his is anything but fake. In fact, this is the most real moment in all of Jacob’s life. This struggle, this conflict, this nighttime encounter is the defining moment of his journey of faith and salvation, and he walks away from it forever changed—transformed.

Up until this moment, Jacob’s identity had been formed by his strong desire to play by his own rules, to stack the deck in his favor, to privilege his own needs above others, to get whatever he could for himself by whatever means he could. In fact his very name carried the meaning of trickster or swindler. He and his brother Esau were twins, and they were fighting each other even in the womb. As he grew up, Jacob’s trickery tore apart the family as he betrayed his father, conspired with his mother, and made an enemy of his brother when he cheated him out of his inheritance. Esau was so angry he wanted to kill him, so Jacob skipped town and was living as a fugitive on the run for years and years. He travelled to a foreign land married his two wives and continued his conniving and trickery.

Finally after twenty one years of life on the run, Jacob decides its time to come home. In twenty one years a lot can happen. Maybe, he hoped, time would heal all wounds. But as he gets closer and closer, he hears rumors that his brother Esau is still angry and wants him dead. Jacob sends a huge flock of sheep to his brother as a gift, a peace offering, hoping to win some favor or at least buy some time. Then as he approaches a river that is a boundary marker he makes a decision. He sends his two wives and his many children and servants all across the river to continue their journey, but he stays behind. He does this for their safety. Esau doesn’t have anything agaist them. They are innocent. And so they are safer without him for now.

As the darkness of night fell upon him, Jacob laid down and tried to sleep, but he couldn’t. Here he was alone, all alone. No family. No friends. No protection. No hope. He knew that in the morning it would be his turn to cross the river, his time to face his past and atone for his wrongs. In the light of day he would have to finally meet his brother face to face, and there was a strong chance he wouldn’t be able to weasel his way out of this conflict.

That night while he lay awake in the dark, suddenly the figure of a man appear by his camp. Without any words of warning, the man approached and grabbed Jacob. This guy was strong. Was it Esau, sneaking over the river to kill him in his sleep…no, that wasn’t Esau’s style. Who was this stranger in the night? Whoever he was, he had Jacob in a pretty intense headlock. But Jacob was scrappy and was able to slip out of the man’s grasp long enough to launch his own counter attack. The two men locked arms and brawled for hours and hours throughout the night. They wrestle there in the dark, with no one seeming to be able to gain the upper hand. Finally, the stranger took a page out of Jacob’s own play book, with all his might he punched Jacob in the hip, so hard that it knocked the hip out of socket. But even with this dirty move, even with the sharp pain from the blow, Jacob would not let go of his hold.

The first hints of the morning light were beginning to shine and the stranger broke his silence as he yelled, “Let me go!” But Jacob said, “No, I will not let you go until you bless me.” Make me a promise first, give me a blessing and then I’ll release my hold. The stranger does bless him and give him a new name. He says, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God.” What? What did you say? After all these hours of wrestling, now at the end of the battle the stranger reveals his true identity. This was no ordinary man, but the very presence of God whom Jacob was wrestling with all along. And he will forever be changed by this encounter.

Jacob has a new name, Israel-which means Wrestles with God. Struggles with God. He has a new name, and a blessing. All his life he had striven for power and privilege and control. But this night he had grappled with God and lived to tell the tale. Everything else is now changed, his life has taken on a whole new perspective beyond his ability to control. The world around him and other people in his life are no longer means to his own ends, no longer objects to be manipulated to be tricked and swindled. His brother is no longer someone to fear, for if you can endure a wrestling match with the Almighty, what do you have to be a afraid of in the morning?

And so, as a changed man, a blessed man, a man with a new name, Jacob…I mean Israel goes out to meet his brother, face to face. He goes full of humility, ready to beg forgiveness for his past wrongs, and when he and Esau see each other, they embrace. Body to body, not as a wrestling match, but as a brotherly hug. They weep and reunite. Esau looks through his tears and sees Jacob’s many children, Esau’s own niece and nephews whom he has never met and he says, “introduce me to your family, to our family.”

This story of Jacob’s conflict with his brother and wrestling match with God is in many ways a telling of our own story. Like Jacob, we live in a world that we try to control. We live in a culture that is seeks to privilege some above others. In our world of greed we are taught in to get whatever we can for ourselves no matter the toll it may take on our brothers and sisters, our world, or generations yet to come. We swindle our way through life, treating people as means to an end. But sometimes we encounter situations that we cannot control. We wrestle with powers and principalities that we cannot name in the darkness, but we wrestle nonetheless. We dare not let go, even if we don’t know who or why we are fighting.

We wrestle as individuals with our own pains, our own wounds, our own hard and difficult pasts. Maybe it a broken home or hurt from a long time ago. Maybe it’s a dead-end job or feelings of inadequacy. Maybe it’s years of being put down, abused, told we don’t belong. Maybe it’s grief from saying goodbye to a loved one far too soon. Maybe it’s depression, or addiction, or fear, or anxiety. Whatever it is, each and every one of us has those nameless forces that we wrestle with in the darkness of life.

And we also wrestle as a community. We wrestle as a nation with stories and narratives that are in conflict, we wrestle with histories and hopes that carry strong and divisive meanings within our national family. We wrestle still with the past sins of slavery and the evils of racism that have been a part of our national for far too long. We may have thought that wrestling match was over. Surely these forces were defeated in the 1860’s through the bloodshed of the Civil War. Surely they were defeated in the 1940’s when American soldiers, white and black fought side by side to oppose the evils of Nazi fascism and the horrors of the Holocaust. Surely they were defeated in the 1950’s when “separate but equal” was ruled to be unjust and unequal in our schools. Surely they were defeated in the 1960’s when the Civil Rights movement ensured all people regardless of the color of their skill the right to vote and equal protection under the constitution. Surely, in each of these struggles we thought we had prevailed. We thought we had won the fight against these forces of evil. Only to have ourselves punched in the hip yet again in recent days and in throughout the last decade as the evil of racism rears it ugly sinful head yet again.

As individuals, as a community, as a country, as a human race we continue to wrestle in the dark with struggles that we cannot fully name. Our world is wounded and knocked out of socket. But the truth we find in Jacob’s story is that blessing comes through this struggle. Blessing! Life changing, name changing, world changing transformation occurs only when we refuse to let go, when we refuse to tap out, when we refuse to give in to fear and hate, when were refuse to abandon the scuffle that God has put before us in our lifetime.

At the end of the story, Jacob walks away from the wrestling match as a changed man. He walks away with a blessing, he walks away with a new name. He walks away to meet his brother and finally begs forgiveness for his past sins. But the truth is, he walks away with a limp. An injury that he will carry for the rest of his life. A scar that reminds him of the power of that struggle. As individuals and as a nation, we will not walk away from our struggles unscathed. We will be bear the scars of our years of wrestling with the truth. We may stumble away form these struggles with tears in our eyes and pain we can never eras, but in the end that is ok. Because the point of the struggle was never to keep things as they are. The point of the wrestling match was always to grapple with God’s transforming presence in our lives and in our world. And if that limp was a reminder of how far Jacob had come from his old days and his old ways, then he would be forever grateful for the reminder.

So friends, if it seems hard or confusing or difficult, if continuing the struggle feels painful, don’t let go. Don’t let go before the blessing that is to come for those who endure.

To the God of Jacob, the wrestling transforming God of Jacob, be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

Scripture

Genesis 32:22-31

The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. ²³He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. ²⁴Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. ²⁵When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ²⁶Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ ²⁷So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ ²⁸Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ ²⁹Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. ³⁰So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ ³¹The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.