Why The Cross? Sermon Luke 23:1-49

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

I was talking with a pastor colleague of mine about a year ago and I was asking him how his Holy Week services went. He said that they all went well and that he thought that everyone who attended was blessed by the experience. He then began to laugh a little bit and he told me something his 10 year old daughter had said. Cassie is a very precocious young lady and after the Holy Thursday service she came up to one of the long standing members of the church and asked him “Why did Jesus have to die on a Cross?” Needless to say the man was stunned and had no idea what to tell her, but he gathered himself and began to explain it to her as you would to a ten year old telling her that Jesus had to die for our sins. She stopped him cold, “No, no, no, if God loves us so much why couldn’t he just forgive us without Jesus having to die.” “Go ask your father” the man replied.

This ten year old girl touched on a part of theology that has been thought about and debated for almost 2 millennia by most of the Church fathers and it is the same question I ask this morning. Why the cross? So many times we simply accept things theologically without asking why because we think that in asking why we are demonstrating weak faith and that the strong in faith simply accept biblical teachings without question. But I say that is backwards. That if we are going to explore our faith and move deeper in our trust of God then we must ask questions. So today let us explore this deeply important moment in the history of our faith.

I want to talk about three different answers to the question of why and then talk about the problems within them and then how all three of them can work together to give, in my opinion, a fuller answer to the question of why. The first answer I want to look at is by far the most popular and the most widely known answer called substitutionary atonement. This answer is also the oldest answer given starting to form within the thinkers in the early Church especially a guy by the name of Anslem. The basic idea of substitutionary atonement is that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross paid for the sins of humanity. It breaks down like this. Atonement refers to a payment or rather a repayment of wrong committed, in this case it is humanity’s need to repay God for the sins it has committed. God has given us every blessing and every gift, a beautiful planet teeming with life, a brain that functions in ways we have yet to fully understand, every benefit in the world and we have taken those things and thrown them away in sinful selfishness. Because God is righteous and because God cannot be in the presence of sin humanity must atone itself for the sins it has committed. However, there is a problem humanity cannot atone for itself because we cannot do more good than what we are already responsible for to God. It would take something good to atone for the bad sin we commit. However, all the good we do, worship God, read Scripture, help the poor, are things that God already commands us to do and so we can never make up for the debt that we owe only God can pay the debt. So we are stuck, but God has a plan. Because only God can make up for the sins that we have committed and because it is humanity that is in need for atonement then there must be a God-man to do the job and so we have Jesus that is where the substitution takes place; substitutionary atonement.

There are lots of Scripture that seem to agree with this answer. The one that seems to be the best is from Isaiah 53. -Read Isaiah 53- So we see that in this line of thinking God’s sacrificial lamb was Jesus and the blood of Christ was shed for the sins of the world. This is nothing new to us here in the Bible belt, it is something we have been told most of our lives and I believe that it is true. Jesus is the substitute for us on the cross and lives his life so that we might have eternal life. However, there are problems with this line of thinking. First, God is pictured as a vengeful and wrathful judge who requires a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. This does not, at least in my mind, equate with a God that is love, like we see in 1 John 4. As we said a couple of weeks ago, how could the Father leave his only Son on the Cross to die? Secondly, this idea of the Cross equates violence with atonement, as Isaiah says “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” It was through the pain of the Cross that our sins are paid for now for some of us this adds to the reverence of the moment, there is a feeling that God did this for me. However, for some this is problematic, if someone has been the victim of torture and violence then how can they want to serve a God who demands violence as payment for sin? So we can see there are some problems with this idea of substitutionary atonement.

Let us know look at another answer to the question of why the Cross called moral influence. This idea came more out of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the thinking of Eastern theologians. The basic idea of this model is that Christ’s death on the cross was not a atonement for sin, but was instead the ultimate demonstration of God’s love. In this model God does not desire atonement but sends Christ to Calvary to show the world that we have no reason to fear God because of our sin, because the forgiving love of God has overpowered the mark of sin. The Cross does not pay the debt of sin, but demonstrates that the debt has been forgiven by God and that humanity has no reason to fear penalty or wrath from God but is free to come to God. Another aspect of this answer to the question is that it brings Jesus into solidarity with all those in the world today and those in the past who have died because of violence and torture. Jesus became one of them on one hand so that God could fully understand what it meant to be “the least of these” and on the other hand so that through Christ all those who have done violence and tortured others can also be forgiven.

Let me tell you a story to illustrate this point. There was once a Jewish man who returned to the site of his captivity in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. He was one of the lucky ones who survived that horrible genocide. He came there to remember and to mourn. Also there was one of the German guards who stood idly by while all this torture and death took place around him. The guard recognized the Jewish man and came up to him and dropped to his knees and with tears in his eyes he begged the man for forgiveness for the part he played. The Jewish man stood there and with tears in his own eyes he tried to forgive him, but he could not. He said he could not because he was not one of the 6 million that where systematically slaughter, he was not one the ones who were crammed into the ovens, only those people could offer forgiveness to the guard. And so Christ allowed himself to be tortured and crucified so that he could offer forgiveness not only to the downtrodden but to the torturers, not only to the oppressed but also to the oppressors, and through Christ all of those people the guards and the victims can come together and be reconciled to one another. This is the idea behind the second answer.

Each one of these ideas do not fully answer the question of why the cross, but when put together and seen as a whole answer then a deeper, more complete answer can be reached. In what ever answer you hold to the point is still the same the result is the same, Christ died so that we all might be reconciled to God, we might be reconnected to God. The verse in the story that is most powerful for me is 45b “and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.” The curtain that this verse is referring to is the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the world. This is where God was said to dwell and only the high priest could enter and only one day of the year. However, the sacrifice of Christ which both atoned for our sins and was the ultimate demonstration of love broke the barrier between God and humanity. The curtain has been torn and through Christ we can have a one on one relationship with God. That is why Christ died on the cross, the exact reason we might never know, but what I do know is this God provided us with a means of reconnection, not just for a select few, but for the entire world, every man, woman, and child. As we move toward the Cross of Good Friday we remember that through this horrible, dark moment the love and grace of God shined forth and continues to shine forever.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Crucifixion Revolution: Sermon John19

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

Two things that I have always heard should not be mixed are religion and politics. In fact, I have heard that these two topics should never be mentioned in polite social conversation. Well I have never been one for social rules or constraints so I am going to talk about religious themes and political themes this morning and hopefully we’ll all still be friends when I get done.

We are coming closer and closer towards Easter. That beautiful Sunday morning when we dress a little nicer, maybe buy a new dress or a new tie, and celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. However, before we can come to the joy of Sunday morning, we must, like Jesus did, pass through the horror of Friday afternoon. And so as we go toward the cross of Calvary let us look at some of the ramifications of the cross, specifically today the political ramifications then and now. Now you might be surprised to hear that the cross has anything to do with politics, but let’s not think of politics as the mudslinging, sign waving madness we see every four years. Instead let us think of it in the sense that the cross of Christ permeates all aspects of human life and we will examine the effects politically in the past when it happened and in the present for today’s world.

Before we can talk about the political ramifications of the cross we must look at the political landscape of the time leading up to that fateful day. Jerusalem and all of what was once the kingdom of Israel was under the occupation of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was in the midst of what history as called the Pax Romana, which is Latin for “Roman peace” and it was a time of about 100 years of peace throughout the realm that was controlled by the Empire. This might sound like a good thing, but this so called peace was created by years of military conquest and it was maintained by the strict control of the government and the threat of military reprisals and public execution for those who dared threaten the peace. So the city of Jerusalem, which was notorious for upheavals and riots, was an important symbol of the Roman occupation and was ordered to be held peaceful at all costs, any trouble was not tolerated.

The Roman Empire was of course ruled over by the Emperor; at the time of Jesus was Tiberius Caesar. The first emperor of the Roman Empire was Julius Caesar and during his reign he allowed a statue of himself to be erected with the inscription Deo Invicto which is Latin for “unconquered god”, he though a little highly of himself. When we died his nephew, who succeeded him, Augustus Caesar deified Julius naming him “divi filius” or “son of a god”, sound familiar. This created a precedent; every succeeding emperor would deify the one before him and so began a worship of the Roman imperial line. So you can see how a man claiming to be the Son of God might be problematic to the powers that be.

So the first Scripture reading came from the Triumphal entry into Jerusalem (I know it’s a week early). The entire scene is a political statement, both to the Jewish and Roman authorities. First Jesus is greeted with shouts of “Hosanna” “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord- the King of Israel”. This is definitely proclamation against the Roman occupation. Jesus then mounts a donkey and rides into the East Gate of Jerusalem with the crowd following him in all of which is predicted in the Hebrew Scripture which were know by most of the Jews in the city. Also Jesus is riding into Jerusalem on the week of the Passover festival which celebrates the liberation of the Jewish people from the captivity of an empire, specifically the Egyptian empire. So tensions were already high and Jesus intentionally adds to this tension by his actions.

So we have set the scene. We know a little about the background of the political situation that Jesus found himself. So let’s turn towards Calvary, towards the Cross. I want to look at the Cross from the Roman side of things and then from Jesus’ side of things. First the cross was the worst thing Roman Empire gave to the world. It was a mode of execution unlike anything we can fathom today. It was long, painful, and public. Crucifixion was not the most time effective mode of execution, I mean if you just wanted to kill someone there are many other methods to use and the Romans used them. The Romans saved the crucifixion for two specific types of criminals, runaway slaves and insurrectionists. The former because slavery was important to the economy of the empire, the threat of such a horrid death kept some control over them and the later for the same reason. The Cross was more a demonstration than an execution, the point wasn’t just about killing someone, but instead to send a warning against any others that might dare defy the Empire. When Pilate nailed that sign to the cross of Jesus that said King of the Jews, it wasn’t out of respect for Jesus, but a warning to any other trouble maker that might be in crowd. It was saying this is what the Roman Empire does to so called “kings”, this is how the Romans kept their Pax Romana.

So we see how the cross and crucifixion was used as a tool of social control, but how does Jesus change this notion and create a new revolution from this horrible death. First let us look at the conversation that Jesus has with Pilate. Jesus tells him that his kingdom is not of this world and if it was of this world his followers would fight, just as the legions of the Roman Army would fight for their kingdom and leader. Here Jesus makes a small statement, but it is the beginning of the revolution. Those crowds on Palm Sunday were rooting for a king to come in with sword and shield to kick the Romans out and restore the kingdom of Israel and when it turned out that this was not going to happen, when they thought Jesus was just another disappointment they yelled “Crucify Him!” Jesus did not conquer the world with sword and shield, but by humble submission. That is the revolution. The peace that the Roman government provided was fought with armies and battles and conquests and it was maintained by the threat of violence and the torture of crucifixion, the peace of Christ was founded on a cross.

Unfortunately for the Roman army their Pax Romana only lasted about 100 years and eventually the Empire itself fell apart. The peace that Jesus still offers was not won in battle, but in the submission to the very tool of Roman oppression. Jesus did not fight the Roman Empire with sword and shield, but with two pieces of bloodstained wood and three nails. Peace, complete peace, the kind of peace that lasts forever was achieved by submission and obedience to the will of God. The cross tells us that true peace is brought about not by war, but by love. Love that was strong enough to be nailed to the cross.

What does that tell us today? How can we attain this peace? We attain it by following the same path as Jesus did, maybe not to a physical crucifixion, maybe not to physical nails and wood, but to the same mentality of Christ. When we have a choice to gain by force or by peaceful means, take the revolutionary path, the path of Christ. When people attack us on all fronts, instead of acting in rage, retaliation, and revenge we cry out in this same way Jesus does, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” We attain this peace when we humble ourselves enough that we all can cry “Forgive me Father, for I know not what I do.” We must lay down our sword and shield, live peaceable with one another and with ourselves.

This is not the end of the story. God’s will was done in the cross, but not completed because three days later God demonstrated what a shock and awe campaign was all about. God’s power lifted Christ from the veil of death and showed that the peaceful way is rewarded, maybe not immediately, remember Christ lay for three days, but God does and will conquer all, not in a military way but through grace and love. These are weapons of mass destruction that destroy not flesh and bone, but hatred, anger, war, racism, sexism, poverty, and injustice wherever it might be found. Let us not be like the Romans who sought to conquer the world with sword and shield. But take the path of Jesus; lay down our sword and shield down by the riverside and study war no more.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

That what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

And that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Final Question of the Cross: Sermon Matthew 27:45-54

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

How many of you have ever seen the movie Castaway starring Tom Hanks? The movie is about this guy who is stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. He was forced to survive and live in complete isolation. He was so alone in fact that he made a friend out of a volleyball that had washed up on shore and named him Wilson.

We have all been alone at some point in our lives. Some of us tread being alone and some of us love and need some “me” time on occasion. Although we may not be stranded on a deserted island, we do know what it means to be without the presence of other human beings. However, have any of you felt alone in a room full of people and despite the fact there might be ten or twenty people in the room you feel, for one reason or another, completely alone? I think this is what Jesus felt on the cross. In fact Jesus uses the word forsaken, which if you look the word forsake in the Webster’s dictionary it says “to renounce or turn away from entirely.” In other words it means to be alone despite being surrounded by people. Because there were people there at the scene of the Crucifixion, but still Jesus feels abandoned, forsaken.

Not only does Jesus feel forsaken by the people there, he also feels abandoned by God. In fact he is addressing God, he says “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which translates to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is an interesting text because this one of the few times where Jesus does not refer to God as “Father”, in this moment the intimacy is lost, Jesus feels alone and simply cries out, like many of us to in the midst of crisis, “My God, My God.” This line does not originate with Jesus but comes from Psalm 22, we read it earlier. David writes this Psalm in a time of trials, he is being chased by his enemies, he probably hides in a cave somewhere and quickly jots these words down, asking the same question Jesus asks, the same question we explored last week, “God, where are you, why have you left me?” Jesus’ momma or school teacher might have forced Jesus to remember and recite this Psalm, like some of us were forced to memorize Scripture, and in this moment of despair and agony those childhood memories flood back and Jesus cries out to God.

So we see, even the Son of God, Jesus our Savior, asked the question “why God, where are you?” In the asking of this question we must ask ourselves, does God abandon Jesus on the cross? This is an important question to ask because our ideas about who God is and how God functions hinge on this question. If God is love and God is good how can God leave God’s own son to hang there all alone? No parent would leave their child to die completely alone. There are some theological answers to this question that I want to explore today and allow you to decide for yourself.

One answer comes from a more conservative, perhaps a more traditional mindset. This answer says yes, God did forsake Jesus, in the sense that God turned away from Jesus. Not to be mean or in any way to punish, but because of the sin of the world that had been placed upon Jesus in that moment. Jesus bore all our sins on the cross and \the sinless had become sinful, and so God, who is pure righteousness, cannot look upon sin and therefore has to turn away, even away from this dying son on a cross. This idea is based on the notion that God cannot be in the presence of sin, because God is pure and righteous it would be like mixing oil and water. This idea makes sense to those of us who are already Christians and who understand the idea that Jesus laid down his life for the sins of the world. It also gives us an idea of the horror of that moment and makes us wonder what was worse, the physical agony of the crucifixion or the mental and spiritual agony of the sins of every person who had, does, and will live on this earth?

There are problems with this theory. One problem with this notion is it makes God seem mean, almost cruel, I mean if God is this loving parent then how could he leave his son, abandon his only child? No parent could do that. If God is love like the Bible says in 1 John4:7 then how could God do this? Also, if God abandons Christ on the cross because of the sins of the world; does God abandon us here on earth because we are constantly sinful? Humans are inherently sinful and logically then God could never look upon us, because even those of us who are under the grace of Christ still commit sin. So if God abandons his very son because of the sin put upon him by God, then what hope do we have? So you can see the problems with this notion.

Let’s try to rethink this theological concept a little bit. There are times in each of our lives when we have felt abandoned. We might have been left out in the cold by friends, spouses, or even family. We might have been in debt, sick without someone to take care of us, or whatever the situation might be we feel abandoned. There might have even been a time when you felt like Jesus, forsaken, even by God. Sometimes we feel like that because God does not come immediately to our aid. We pray and pray and we automatically assume the because our prayers were not answered that God has left us or God is punishing us and we might even remember this story and say yeah God has left me just as he left Jesus. However, the truth of the matter is that wherever we go or whatever we do God never leaves us. God is always there.

So how do we reconcile this with our story today? If God is with us then why does Jesus cry out in this way? Where was God? The answer in short: God was on cross. Remember that Christ is God made into flesh, the Holy One made into this human shell so that God might experience what it was to be a human being.

I remember a story that can illustrate this point. George Washington had just been appointed general of the American Revolutionary Army and was on his way to Philadelphia to receive the official paperwork; he hadn’t even been issued a uniform. Along the road he encountered a group of American soldiers digging a ditch with their commanding lieutenant “supervising” and when Washington asked the young lieutenant why wasn’t he offering to help. “I am an officer” the young man replied. Washington then got off his horse and aided the men in their work. When they had finished Washington mounted his horse and rode off. The point of the story his that Washington despite being the highest ranking officer in the American army was not afraid to get down and dirty with his men so that he could better understand then and thereby better lead them. This is called servant leadership, not asking anyone to do anything they would not do themselves. The ultimate act of servant leadership is in the cross.

God wanted to know what it meant to face the worst the world could dish out. God wanted to know the worst of humiliation, the worse of degradation, the worst of pain, and yes the worst of abandonment. Why? So that God himself can stand in solidarity with us. Meaning that God can stand with us because what ever pain or trouble we find ourselves, God has been there too. There is no pain God himself has not felt. There is no hurt God has not experiences, there is no shame that God in Christ did not bear. God as been there so God can be with us.

We might feel abandoned, we might feel alone, separated by God, but through the cross and God’s own suffering and abandonment we are never forsaken by God. We have hope eternal that no matter where we are or what we do or have done God is always with us. This is the hope of the gospel; the promise that we stand on even in the darkest of places. We might not always feel God’s presence and God might not come exactly when and how we want him to, but God’s love is never away from us. Let us always remember Paul’s words to the church in Rome, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Oldest Question: Isaiah 55:1-9, Luke 13:1-9

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are there so many tragic stories on the news and in the paper each day? Where is God in all this? Why does God allow such things to happen to humans whom God claims to have unbounded love for? These are questions that have plagued humanity for thousands of years. These are the questions that plague all faith traditions: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Atheists. Each religion must try to answer this question of why and none of them, not even Christianity, can give an absolute answer to the question that will satisfy all people.

This question follows us around and when times are good and things are going well it remains dormant like a volcano or hibernating like a grizzly bear. However, as soon as something happens the question erupts and attacks our minds, our souls, and even our faith down to the very core. We all can remember where we were and what we were doing when the towers fell on September 11th. The question that was on the lips of all Americans and the world was “why?” Why did this have to happen?

The 9/11 attacks were a disaster in all respects and although the question of why was left unanswered we did know who those men whose pictures we saw on the news. Although the terrorist attacks that occurred affected all of us in America in some ways, when we think of catastrophe occurring we tend to think more about natural disasters. These are the events that leave both the why and the who in question. Natural disasters affect people in every corner of the world. California does not have many tornadoes or hurricanes, but they have earthquakes. Michigan doesn’t face many volcanoes or oppressive heat, but they have blizzards. We in Tennessee don’t face the immediate dangers of earthquakes or tsunamis, but we have tornadoes and damaging storms. Each time nature strikes, whether it is a Hurricane Katrina, a tsunami devastating Southeast Asia, or a tornado that strikes a high school and a hospital during a school day, we feel the affects wherever we are and that question creeps upon us.

Each of us faces the dangers of automobile, household, or farming accidents. How many times have you traveled down the road and seen wooden crosses or flowers along a guard rail? We are especially affected when it is a young person who is killed before they have had a chance to live. We also see evil man and women on television who commit horrible crimes against the most helpless among us; children and we can’t help but to ask why? Why do bad things happen? Why does God allow this to happen?

We see echoes of this question in our Scripture reading for today. Luke describes confrontation Jesus has with a group of people. They tell him about an atrocity committed by Pilate, he had killed Galileans while they worshiped and about how a tower had collapsed killing 18 people. Jesus’ response is puzzling and almost uncharacteristically cold. He simple tells them to repent or perish. The people are asking the question of why and Jesus seemingly ignores their request. Is it because they question is too hard even for the Son of God or because the question is beyond an answer that humans can understand? Let us look at the question and some possible answers and some problems with those answers and then turn back to Luke and Isaiah with some new insights. The question has been wrestled with by theologians for centuries to the point that the question and the theme behind the question have been given a name that is theodicy.

The answer the question has to do, in part, with the providence of God or the ability or willingness of God to influence things on earth. There are two schools of thought, both on two extremes of the range of possible answers, that I want to touch on today and then look towards a possible third answer that lies in somewhere in the middle. The first extreme is Hyper-Calvinism. Calvinism gets its name from a man named John Calvin who lived in the 15^th and 16^th centuries in Switzerland and France. He was part of the Protestant Reformation which broke off from the Roman Catholic Church and he came developed his own theology. His answer to the question of why was that God was in charge of everything. Everything that happens of Earth was a direct act from God. God made the sun come up and the sun go down. God made the rains to come and the rains to stay away and so on and so forth. Calvin adhered the 3 Omnis of God, the word Omni is Latin for “all”. According to Calvin and others God is omnipotent which means all powerful, omnipresent which means in all places at all times, and omniscient which means all knowing and all seeing.

This notion that God is all powerful, God is everywhere, and God is all knowing can be comforting to some. God is in control of everything and so I don’t have to worry about anything. Sometimes it feels good to let control go over to something else. It is also comfortable to think of God as in control of everything. It gives us a sense of comfort when things turn to chaos. There are some people who take this line of thinking and believing to the extreme. There are some who refuse to see doctors or take medicine claiming that they trust completely in God’s will. But most of us can see the problem with this type of thinking. Most of us understand that God works through science, medicine, and doctors. This kind of thinking leads to a lack of responsibility for our own predicaments. Remember the temptation of Jesus, “Do not put God to the test.” It reminds me of the story about the man in the midst of a flood. There was a flood in a village.
One man said to everyone, "I'll stay! God will save me!"
The flood got higher and a boat came and the man in it said "Come on mate, get in!"
"No" replied the man. God will save me!
The flood got very high now and the man had to stand on the roof of his house.
A helicopter soon came and the man offered him help."
No, God will save me!" he said
Eventually he died by drowning.
He got by the gates of heaven and he said to God "Why didn't you save me?"
God replied, "I sent a boat and a helicopter. What more do you want!"

There are other problems with this line of thinking. The main problem is that if God is all powerful, ever-present, and all knowing and bad things happen then God cannot be all loving and all good. It does not add up logically. How does this explanation hold up when someone has terminal cancer? A person who holds to Hyper-Calvinism might say that God gave the cancer to that person so that he or she might be made stronger or their families might be made stronger. This mode of thinking says that God allows disasters both natural and man-made so that we might be made better for the experience. We can’t imagine a loving Parent or Creator doing this kind of thing.

Another problem that is born out of this kind of thinking is that God sends disasters both on an individual, community, and world-wide scale to punish the wicked. The terrorists on 9/11 thought they were doing the will of God by punishing America for its lack of support for Muslim countries. Several televangelists and preachers said and continue to say that God punished America because of its tolerance of sexual immorality and the tolerance of homosexuality. Many said that God punished New Orleans by sending Hurricane Katrina and God punished Southeast Asia by sending the tsunami. Most of us dismiss this kind of thinking immediately. We cannot fathom God doing this kind of thing to humanity.

Let’s turn now to the other side of the coin which is Deism. That is the belief that God created the universe and set things into motion, but does not actively participate in the world today. It is like a set of dominos being set off. God set everything up and push the first domino off and sets back and watches the rest of the dominos fall as they may. Disasters either manmade or natural are simply part of the universe and are not cause by nor allowed or prevented by God. This school of thought came out of the Enlightenment when new scientific discoveries were being made. As humans became more and more familiar with the inner workings of life and the world around us the miraculousness of the world seem to fade away. God might have set things in motion, but the world pretty much runs on its own.

There are, of course, problems with this side as well. We believe in a God that is fully active in the world today. God is not just for the Bible and for Biblical times, but is with us in the here and now, in Rehoboth/Liberty United Methodist Church March 11, 2007. We believe in the power of prayer and God ability to answer prayer sometimes in miraculous ways.

So where does that leave us. We see problems in both extremes and so perhaps the answer is somewhere in the middle. John Wesley described God as a loving Parent not as a tyrannical king like in Hyper-Calvinism and not like a mystical, absent Creator like in Deism. This Wesleyan view of God understands that God is involved with the world today and that God does not simple watch the events of the world without care or concern. Also this view of God recognizes that God gives humanity free will which is the ability to make free choices. Just as a parent allows his or her child to make their own choices. However, a parent does not simply throw his/her child into the world without any kind of guidance along the way and so God also guides us through Scripture and through the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. In all things, I affirm, in fact it is central to my theology that God is love, God does not love but the very essence of God is love.

Let’s try to find some middle ground between the two. Humans are given free will and the ability to choose everything, even the ability to choose or reject God; therefore we also have the power to make bad choices, even horribly evil choices. We have to ability to choose to kill someone, even a child; we have the ability to murder, enslave or oppress a group of people just because of their race; we have the ability to choose the most evil or the most good. This means that the responsibility is ours. God did not send those men to crash airplanes into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, they chose to do it.

What about natural disasters? Some would argue that the increased strength and frequency of weather related phenomena are caused by global warming which is caused by pollution. Most scientist agree that these type of phenomenon like tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis are the earth’s way of renewal which has been going on for millions of years. The fact that we are caught up in it is because we have chosen to live in areas of increased natural activity such as California, the Gulf Coast, and the Midwest and Southeast. All in all these can give some answer to the question of why.

All three of these answers are incomplete and we are left with God’s revelation to Isaiah.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The answer given here is the same given to Job. We cannot fully understand God’s plan or even God’s nature. It is an eternal mystery. One that one day we will be able to understand fully. Until then the question always plagues us and no answer is completely satisfactory. How do we go on in a world filled with horror and tragedy? We must hold on to our faith. Our faith is that God was with us in the midst the ashes of the Twin Towers; God was with us in the 9^th ward of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, God was with us Southeast Asia after the devastation of the tsunami, God is with us when the doctor says its cancer, God is with us when we walk in the valley of the shadow of death and God’s love will never leave us no matter what we might face. In God will not forsake us and God’s love abounds no matter where we find ourselves. Until the day when all our answers are made clear “Farther along we'll know more about it Farther along we'll understand why Cheer up my brother live in the sunshine We'll understand it all by and by.”

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Staying Strong in the Midst of Distraction: Sermon Luke 13:31-35

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

“The leading cause of atheism in the world today, is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what and unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable”. This the opening line of a song by the contemporary Christian group dc Talk. I remember the first time I heard it I was sort of dumbfounded. You mean that somehow I could be responsible for the atheism in the world and that my actions and my decisions affect more than just me. This was a radical idea for a teenager and put me into some serious thought. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that it was true.

I have talked to many people who no longer consider themselves to be Christians. Some say that they are simply “spiritual” but not “religious” and even some have rejected the whole kit and caboodle altogether and have become atheists. I ask them, politely and without judgment, why, why have they made this decision? For a lot of those people it was because of a traumatic experience in a church setting. One lady saw her pastor preach hellfire and brimstone on Sunday only to carry out adulterous affairs during the week. Another person had an abusive parent who thumped their kids as well as their Bible. In some way each person was hurt by someone who claimed to be Christian. Whatever the reason because of the actions of a so-called Christians they have rejected Christ. In these cases our actions as Christians speak much louder than words.

We are constantly bombarded with distractions from our faith. There is money which always seems to get us into trouble. Maybe that is why Jesus said we couldn’t serve two Masters God and money. Jealously, anger, resentment, and many other things seem to take our focus away from God. It happens to all of us at some point, no one is immune from it. Unfortunately we are being watched, like a hawk. The eyes of the unbelieving world are upon us just waiting for us to mess up. They are just waiting for the moment that they can go “Aha! Look over there! It is a Christian who has done something awful, it’s a priest who has molested children, it is a preacher that preached homophobia caught with a male prostitute, and it’s an angry Christian shout and yelling at someone.” It seems that they are just waiting for any opportunity to point and say “Hypocrite, hypocrite!!” They get their chances to because the fact is that although we are Christians we are also human beings, who make mistakes. Fortunately for us God has grace for when we mess up; unfortunately the world has no grace.

Jesus faced similar situations. Our story today places Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, on his way to what he knew would be his death. Along the way he faced many distractions one is within our story. Jesus is walking along when a group of Pharisees come to warn Jesus not to come to Jerusalem because Herod would kill him. This is interesting because it is the Pharisees who we have seen traditionally as an adversary of Jesus is coming to warn him. Perhaps, these were secret followers of Jesus, perhaps they were trying to trick Jesus into not coming to Jerusalem, either way it was a distraction from the work that he had to complete.

Jesus is not dismayed but instead remains focused. He tells them that he is going to continue on his way doing what needs to be done and I will come into Jerusalem and complete the task that has been set before him. Jesus had to maintain his focus and stay on the path of his mission. Jesus knows that his destination is Jerusalem and that his fate is death. However, Jesus knows that the end is not right now and that between that time and now there is much work left to be done.

Don’t we face distractions of purpose, distractions of faith in our journeys with God? Just this week we have seen a group of people claiming to have found the tomb of Jesus and not only that but the body of Jesus. They claim to have found this along with that of Mary Magdalene, Mary and Joseph, James the brother of Jesus and Judah the son of Jesus. These people make these claims because of the markings of the burials boxes. So needless to say this has caused huge publicity. Newspapers and TV news channels have broadcast the question “Is this the end of Christianity?” If Jesus was not resurrected then the whole show is over. Well I will tell you that there are serious holes in this group’s credibility and many scholars, religious and secular, have dismissed any notion that this is the actual tomb of Jesus Christ. We can see though the impact that this could have. Most of us who are strong in the faith can see this is simply another opportunity to make money, like the DaVinci Code people a few years ago. However, it could cause others who might be searching for God to stumble.

The heart of the matter in this whole controversy is faith. People both Christian and atheist want proof to bolster their side. Christians want to find Noah’s Ark or the lost Ark of the Covenant or the Garden of Eden to prove the Bible is true. Atheists want to find the body of Jesus or some scientific explanation to the universe to prove that God does not exist. However the truth is that we cannot nor probably will not prove God exists scientifically and that is ok by me. It’s not about proof it is about faith. Faith is the evidence of things unseen. Faith cannot be measure or tested scientifically and faith does not require scientific evidence. We have faith that Jesus is the Son of God, we have faith that Jesus rose on Easter morning, we have faith that He will come again; we have faith that death is not the end. Jesus told Thomas “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who haven’t seen me and believe anyway.” Jesus’ faith in God and in his mission kept him going in the midst of distraction. And it is our faith that keeps us going in a world filled with distraction. Our faith can be a beacon to others in the world. We cannot prove God’s existence scientifically, but with our faith and with our actions we can show they world that there is something higher that we look to. We have to stand strong in the midst of distraction.

Let’s look back at the story. Jesus reaffirms his mission and his faith that God is with him. Jesus then laments that it has come to this. He is not sad for himself, because of his pending sacrifice, but instead he is sad because the people have not come together. He is sad because the people would not listen to his teachings, but instead they rejected his teachings. Instead of the people join together with him, they scatter. Jesus says “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Jesus wanted to unite the people together, but they would not listen.

Does Jesus lament for the church today? Does Jesus see the divisions amongst his people and become sad again? There are so many things that divide Christians. We argue about baptism, how much water should be used, we argue about Communion and home many times should we celebrate it, we argue about whether or not women should be allowed to preach the gospel. All of this bickering divides the body of Christ along denominational lines. Protestants vs. Catholics. Baptists vs. Methodists vs. Church of Christ vs. Presbyterians it goes on and on. We become cynical and hateful to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our divisiveness is seen by the unbelieving world. They say well if these so-called Christians can’t get along what hope is there for the world. Why would I want to become a Christian if all they do is bicker amongst themselves?

We can see how our arguments can be seen by those seeking faith and how it can turn people off to religion of any kind. We must unite together again. We all have different ways of worshiping God, but the point is that we ARE worshiping God. We have to create a united front in order to face the onslaught of the world. This is what Jesus wants. One denomination is not the “true church” we are all the Church, the body of Christ.

We cannot escape from the world; we are a part of the world. We have to remember that our actions are seen and judged by an unforgiving world. We have to become good ambassadors of the love of Christ. We have to stand firm in the midst of distraction, just as Jesus did. We have to join together as a united Church, resolved our differences as Christians, calmly and lovingly.

Today, as we celebrate Communion let us come together not only as Rehoboth/Liberty United Methodist Church but in communion with all churches and all denominations. Let us remember in the act of Communion we are all one people, given life by the death and resurrection of Christ, through his broken body and shed blood we are set free from our sins. Let us become one once again and hold in our hearts that we are ambassadors of Christ and we are watched by the world. When Christ comes again we will be one, heaven is not divided along denominational lines or by church affiliations. We will be one again, let us be one now.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.