Wanted: Adventurers

Mark 10: 17.

My two oldest children made this swing.
Life is pretty easy here in Ludington, Michigan. 

Imagine you are living in the first century in Palestine. Whatever prosperity might be there is sopped up by the Roman occupation. Imagine trying to survive. Some are are fishermen, some are builders. While the desperate have resorted to tax collection and prostitution. It must have been a harsh environment. It still is a harsh environment. 

Now imagine if Jesus put an ad in the local paper, looking for disciples. It might read something like this. seeking adventurers. Wanted: individuals who are willing to work for little to no material reward. Where the possibility of rejection is high and success is uncertain. You will at times feel powerless and walked upon. You will face very real dangers including bodily injury and even death. However you will become an heir of the King. You will inherit the promises of God. You will find the meaning of life and you will discover the specific purpose for your life. Requirements include, loving God first in your life, letting go of your own notions of power and control, trusting in Jesus as Lord and loving your neighbor.

Who would answer the ad? Who did accept the invitation? It was the laborers, the tax collectors, the outcasts and the powerless.

There were followers of Jesus who had some power and wealth. Joseph who provided the tomb for Jesus' body after the crucifixion, Nicodemus the Pharisee who asked all those questions in the dark of night. There was a Roman officer who demonstrated faith who may have carried the message of Jesus to others. They all were praised by Jesus for coming close to the truth. But these aren't the people that Jesus lifts up as examples. Jesus lifts up the one that feeds the hungry, gives water to the thirsty, cloths the naked and visits the sick.. Jesus says the greatest man born of a woman was John the Baptist because he told people to turn away from sin and turn toward God.

There is a funny thing about we humans. Like other creatures of the earth we are afraid to die. But unlike other creatures our fear moves beyond and instinct to preserve our own life. We think about it. We ponder it. We avoid it while we prepare for it.

We make sure we are in a position to prolong our lives as long as possible. We go to the doctor, we make sure we have food and shelter. To make sure we have food shelter and medical care we get jobs and make money and save money. We build retirement accounts and pensions. We invest in real estate and business. We do all this to have what we need and want. We do this ultimately to avoid death.

But Jesus has a different perspective. Jesus in the Gospel according to John say, “I am the door. If anyone enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” This tells me that, like pasture animals, God will provide for us. God will protect and guide us.

I cannot wait for the election to come. Not that I am overly excited about it but because I am so tired of the political ads. I don't even mind political ads per se. But when they are obviously lying about their opponents or misleading about various proposals it leads me to believe that they don't have my best interest at heart. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;” Jesus says, “I have come so that they may have life, and my have it abundantly.”

Jesus wants the best for you. Jesus wants us to have an abundant life. To know that we are loved, protected and cared for. Jesus wants us to know and love God. Jesus want us to know our purpose it this life and he wants us to participate in the life to come.

The problem is that we are often like the young man that approached him in today's scripture. He ran up to him, fell on his knees, and said, “good teacher, what must I do do to inherit eternal life?” This seems good right. Wouldn't we love that kind of enthusiasm? Wouldn't we appreciate a new believer in Jesus to be that open to following the Lord? But Jesus brings him back down a bit. Jesus says to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Enthusiasm is good but not ignorant enthusiasm. Jesus never took on a disciple that didn't know the cost of following him. Jesus was always clear about what it meant to be his follower. It isn't easy. There will be suffering involved. You will surely be ridiculed perhaps even rejected. Some may even give their lives for their faith.

I don't regret my service in the Army Reserves and Michigan Army National guard. But I can see that I had an enthusiasm when I enlisted that I would not be able to muster now. After all these years I am more able to count the cost. The adventure enticed me. The ideals of patriotism and service called me. But I didn't fully count the cost.

The rich young man was not ready for what Jesus was offering. He knew there was more and he wanted more but he couldn't see clearly just what Jesus was offering. He only saw an unreasonable demand.

When we follow Jesus we must count the cost. The rich young man came to Jesus claiming that he had followed all the commandments since his youth. This young man has done things his life according to his own power. He had wealth to make his life comfortable. He exerted his will to follow the Law of Moses. He was the one in control of his life. He was the one in a position of power over his own destiny. He was fully relying on himself for his own salvation and Jesus recognized it. The young man new he was missing something. He must have sensed an emptiness in his life. He must have had an awareness of his life being incomplete. The Holy Spirit must have directed him toward Jesus as the source of life. So he sought Jesus out. He asked the question, “what must I do.” in the question itself reveals his own delusion. What must I Do? What action should I take? In what way can I exert my power to attain the prize?

So Jesus cuts to the quick as he so masterfully does goes right to the source of this young man's power. His stuff. His earthly abundance. His life insurance policy. Jesus told him to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor. In the young man's eyes Jesus was taking away his power. Jesus was taking away his ability to save himself. In reality Jesus was offering a way to be freed from the illusion of false power. Selling your stuff and giving away the money to the poor is not a requirement to get into heaven, but relinquishing control over your life to God is. This was the only way that this young man would be able to do this.

How difficult it is for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God! Or the powerful person. Come November the race to be number one in power will come to an end. But we know the first will be last and the last will be first in the Kingdom.

So How is it with you today on your journey as a disciple? We all have a certain degree of earthly power and control. Are you willing to set that power aside to let Christ rule in your hearts? The cost may seem high. The demand may seem excessive. Don't be afraid. God will take care of you.  

Here He Was.

Jesus is alive... Jesus lives. The man who had his birth at Bethlehem, the birth that we celebrate every year on December 25^th is currently alive. The One who suffered death on a cross after being tortured by a garrison of Roman soldiers, was able, around the year 30 A.D. This is who we worship. I wonder if you have met him. I wonder if you know him.

What does it mean that we say we gather in the name of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ!

What does it mean when we exchange the: “the Lord be with you... And also with you.”?

It means that when our heart truly belongs to God, when we truly seek first the kingdom of God as a follower of the Risen One and when we gather with other believers then Jesus promises that he will be present with us.

I wonder...are there two or three here this morning who are followers of Jesus Christ. I wonder are there two or three who seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. I wonder are there two or three here his morning who has put all their faith in the Lord Jesus the Messiah. If there is say Amen.

Jesus is here with us this morning my friends!

He is alive!

He is alive and is seated at the right had of the Father.

He is seated at right hand of the father and is present in our gathering today. The ever-present, all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe is here to listen to you praise Him. God is present to hear your prayers. God is here to comfort and to inspire. To convict and to console. To love and to forgive.

Jesus is alive. I know he is alive because he is here.

He is here because he loves you. And he is going out ahead of you preparing work for you. So we are going to have to go out to meet him.

You see we always know where he has been because people that encounter the living Lord can't help but tell about it.

Where he was. We know that he was in Bethlehem. In Nazareth ,by the sea of Galilee. In capernaum. In Samaritan villages and in Bethany He has in the Jordan river in the wilderness. In a garden in the Kidron valley, and we know that he was in Jerusalem in the temple. We also know that he was Just outside Jerusalem on a hill called Golgotha, and we know that he was in a garden tomb... for a little while. We know that he has walked on the road to Emmaus that he was on the shore of the sea of Galilee preparing breakfast for his friends over a charcoal fire. These are places Jesus has been. We can see them for our selves. But He has been there all along. Not in bodily form as Jesus but God has always been there, interacting with people

That is what the bible is. It is a record of God's interactions with people. And then the people wrote their experiences down. Sometimes the accounts were written generations after the event. Sometimes the writings are an understanding of Gods will as understood by the writer, such as in Paul's letters. The Christian faith makes no claim that God dictated the words of scripture or that the Bible came to us by Supernatural means. Holy Scriptures, inspired and authoritative as they are came through the filter of human experience. And I am glad that it did. I have yet to find a manuscript of God's words laying around for me to find. I Have, however experienced God's presence. I have known others who have experienced the presence of God and written about it, they share it and have changed the direction of their life because of it.

The Bible is an inspired book and record of how God has interacted with people. We can an many people do go to the places mentioned in Holy Scriptures. We can tour the places where Jesus taught and performed miracles. We can go and see the places where the apostle Paul went on is missionary journeys through out the Mediterranean Sea. We can read and learn from the writings of those who came and went before us about how they had a relationship with God and it is very informative and very inspiring. But I don't think that was Jesus point in coming.

Fast forward to the contemporary church: You and me. The model of church that we and millions and millions of Christians follow is one that says, “we have a building where we worship God.” People should just know to come here. But Jesus says, “Go! make disciples. Tell people to turn away from a life without god and turn toward God. Jesus says Go! Do the the will of my father.

It's not about a list of rules or behaviors that you have to adopt when you join a church. It's about developing a connection to the Living Lord Jesus Christ. Its about listening for his voice. It is about seeing the world through His eyes and letting him use your hands to do the work that needs to be done. When you look at the world through Jesus' eyes you see the hurt and the brokenness in this world and you feel compelled to do something about it. Some people get so caught up in fixing one particular thing in this world that is broken that they forget to love God and to love people. It happens. Christians are not perfect. We get distracted just like everybody else but just because we fall once and a while doesn't mean that we are defined by our failures. We are defined and designated as adopted children of God. As a follower of Jesus Christ our mission is that same as his mission: To proclaim the Good news of the Kingdom of heaven. Its good news that says that That God loves us. That he is willing to sacrifice himself for us. We need only trust him and submit our will to his, and we will have life in abundance.

The Point is this: We know where Jesus has been! But it is his instructions about what comes next that is most important right now. Knowing where Jesus has been is important because that is how we come to believe. But once we believe...well then we need to stop being religious tourists and we need to meet Jesus where he said he would be.

In the Gospel Lesson this morning the two Marys and Salome went to the tomb of Jesus with their spices they bought after sundown some 11 hours before to anoint the dead body of their beloved Jesus. He wasn't there. There was a young man who pointed out where Jesus was. That was vital information in that they had to understand that he was no longer there. But the most important information came next. He said, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

Jesus is going ahead of you to meet you just as he told you. Now Peter and the other disciples were fortunate that they were able to see Jesus again after his death and resurrection and before his ascension to heaven. They saw and spoke with Jesus. We speak with Jesus and have communication with him by means of the Holy Spirit empowering us with knowledge and wisdom for the task at hand. But indeed Jesus Goes ahead of us. Yes he wants us to understand and believe what he did for us for our salvation. Jesus wants us to understand the enormity of the sacrifice he made for us. But if all we do is understand, well then that's like hearing a story about how you were nurtured as a baby then ignoring those who loved you. Our parents our grandparents who loved and nurtured us not only want to continue to nurture us but they want to love us and want to be loved back. The relationship with have with God is not one that ends with our understanding of what God has done for us, but rather that is precisely where it begins.

We were saved not to remain the same. We were saved to be God's people. To love God. To be obedient to God's will. To be Holy as He is Holy.

So How is it with you on this most Holy day? You can point to many places in your life and in the lives of those you know and say Here God was. You can read scripture and recognize where God was. But are you looking to the place where God said to Go. The place where God is going ahead of you. The place where He will meet you?

May you clearly hear the voice of the Lord Jesus. May you seek first His Kingdom. May you allow God to make you better than you have ever been before.

The Kings Orders

A really cool stool given to me on Father's Day several years ago

Matthew 25:31-46

This stool I have right here was a gift from my family. It was a Fathers Day gift several years ago. It is supposedly a Chiefs stool. I don't know which culture it comes from but apparently a leader of a tribe/community would have something like this and it is a symbol of his authority. It isn't the most comfortable thing though. It is a little too low and there is this metal work that takes away as much comfort as it adds design and beauty.

We, in the adult discussion group, have been talking for the past couple of weeks about Christmas and the best gifts, the worst gifts and the most appropriate gifts to give that demonstrate love and honor Jesus. Rather than being participants in a hyper-consumerist frenzy that ends in disappointment on or about December 26^th every year, we have been exploring ways to make the celebration of the coming of the Savior a more intentional, more meaningful event. And more than that: Not just a day but the whole season can bee steeped in generosity that doesn't have to show it's self in meaningless spending but its a generosity that truly demonstrates the unbounded, unrestrained, unconditional love of god for us.

We were talking about specific gifts we had been given that were meaningful. I failed to remember one very important gift I received. It was a gift that produced in me so much gratitude I couldn't have expressed it adequately with words. What I received on one particular summer day in either 1992 or 1993 I can't exactly remember any more, was one that, though I don't remember the year I will never forget the gift it's self

Now you might expect me to tell about a time when I learned something from a beloved friend or relative that taught me a valuable lesson. Or perhaps I came to a realization about some truth of life through some hardship that I went through. Well, such examples are valuable and can be gifts to be cherished, this, example however is nothing like that. The gift I received was an actual object given to me with out any expectation of return.

It was a t shirt. A single brown cotton blend t-shirt. There were no words printed on the front of it. It didn't come from a particularly special person. I didn't receive it on a particularly auspicious occasion. Just a t-shirt. The thing is, is that the thing I needed most at that moment was indeed a t-shirt and when I needed it, it was given to me.

It was a hot-hot day in that summer of '92 or '93. I was in Grayling Michigan with my National guard unit. We were on a long movement, walking through the woods, ruck sacs full, up and down those hills trying to stay focused, trying to get to where we were going. We stopped. Someone was down. Someone in my unit was suffering from heat exhaustion. We were in too remote an area for an ambulance so we made a litter a stretcher and carried him to the nearest place where an ambulance could pick him up. We moved on. Hot and sweaty we pushed on. When the storms clouds rolled in we saw it as a welcome relief from the heat. When it started to rain we didn't even put our rain gear on because it felt so good. But that turned out to be a mistake. I would find out days later that the National Weather Service reported that the temperature that day dropped 40 degrees in less than 30 minutes. Now I don't know if it was 100 degrees and dropped to 60, or if it was 90 and dropped to 50, I just know that when you are wet, tired, hungry in 40 or 50 or even 60 degree weather it's cold. In fact one of our soldiers went into hypothermia. Sgt. Steed earned a lifesaving medal that day when he lent his own body heat to that down soldier while we waited for the med-evac helicopter to come. We were to far in the woods to carry him back to the point where an ambulance could get to him. We were all cold. I was shivering violently and uncontrollably. I could have been the next one to do down. Until one of my fellow soldiers handed me a dry brown t-shirt. I took of the wet one I had, put the dry one on. Covered it in a rain jacket. Instead fighting to keep my body temperature normal I was able to focus on the task at hand, which was getting out of the woods and going home. I felt such relief and such gratitude.

We serve a Great, Big God. That this great God uses small things to reveal himself to us. He didn't call the elite or the powerful to be his disciples, he called the outcasts and the not-good-enoughs. He wasn't born in a palace but in a barn.

God doesn't call us to to be the biggest and the best. God doesn't call us to draw attention to ourselves with the grand gesture. He calls us to offer water to the thirsty, visits to those who are sick and in prison, food to the hungry and might I add, a t-shirt to those who are cold and wet.

Does this look like a throne of a king?  Perhaps.

This is Christ The King Sunday. This is the last Sunday of the liturgical year. At the end of this year we are at the very edge of a new beginning. Next week we begin again a year with the season of Advent. Christ the King, bumped right up next to Christ the baby born in a barn to a teen-aged mom. The baby who lived under Roman occupation, the baby who would be a refugee in another country for a time. That baby would be come Christ the King. Our king! Jesus said, “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory?” I wonder what that will look like.

What will the throne of Jesus look like? Have you ever seen the movie Indiana Jones and the last Crusade? There is a scene in which Indiana Jones has to choose from dozens of goblets the one that belonged to Jesus during his earthly life. He bypassed all the big, bejeweled, and shiny Goblets in favor of a small simple cup. “The cup of a carpenter” he said. We serve a big God, we serve a powerful god. But God is a god of the small, the simple and the humble. Rather than big and shiny and bejeweled, I figure God's throne might look something like this Chief's stool. Simple and wooden.

We might be tempted to make the faith and to make the season about grand gestures and events and really great feelings. But Jesus says it's about giving a cup of water to the thirsty, some food to the hungry and taking care of the stranger.

So how is it with you today? Your King requires something of you. Mica 6:8 says, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? We can't say we never knew what we were supposed to do. Its right here in his Word. If you did or did not do it for the least of these who are members of his family you did or did not do it for Jesus. Simple as that. Would you pray with me?  

Our Daily Work

I am in the midst of a week of vacation.  I haven't gone anywhere, I haven't done anything out of the ordinary.  I have been going about the mundane details of life as usual.  The only exception: I haven't done any "church" things.  I would like to say it has been relaxing and rejuvenating but the truth is I would rather be "working," that is, doing what God has called me to do.  I love preparing for worship.  I love talking with people.  I love proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus. That is the "work" I have been called to do.  Sometimes the thing we are called to do changes.
 When we find that we are no longer able or circumstances are such that our life's work can no longer be done in the way we have been accustomed, we have to listen carefully to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes our next step, our new direction, our purpose is clear and obvious.  this is, however, the exception.  More often it is a subtle nudge.  It's a shifting of energy that is nearly imperceptible.  When we calm ourselves, when we live lightly on this earth and put our trust and hope in God through Jesus Christ the way will reveal itself.  When it is discovered, it is usually painfully obvious that this was the way.
The Law of Moses and the prophets was the way for hundreds of years.  Jesus is the new way.  Jesus presence in ancient Palestine marked the division of history.  Things were one way and then Jesus seemingly made them different.  But how different?  although Jesus ushered in the New Covenant it was always about God's love for his people.  Jesus presence represented the zenith of that love, the extent to which God would go to be in right relationship with us.
This loving gesture has been made to all people of all times in all places.  This is the ultimate form of inclusiveness.  All those who have found freedom in devotion to the Lord Jesus have the task of knowing Jesus ever more and to go and make Jesus known to all the world starting where ever we are.
There will be another change in humanities relationship with God.    First, Moses and the prophets, then Jesus and the New Covenant, what's next?
Jesus will come again and we will be in the presence of God eternally.  There will be no need to seek Him, He will be with us.  We will see him.  Evil doers and all causes of sin will be removed and we will live and "work" in the way that we were truly designed.  May God bless us all as we try to get closer and closer in our daily work that we have been called to do.