Beyond the Walls: The Wall of Judgment

This sermon was delivered on October 9, 2011 and is the next installment in the series "Beyond the Walls." We are looking at the walls that we build around ourselves and around our churches that inhibit our ability to to fulfill our mission and the Great Commission.

The Wall of Judgment

October 9, 2011

Romans 14:13-23 (NAB)

(13) Then let us no longer judge one another, but rather resolve never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

(14) I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; still, it is unclean for someone who thinks it is unclean.

(15) If your brother is being hurt by what you eat, your conduct is no longer in accord with love. Do not because of your food destroy him for whom Christ died.

(16) So do not let your good be reviled.

(17) For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit;

(18) whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by others.

(19) Let us then pursue what leads to peace and to building up one another.

(20) For the sake of food, do not destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to become a stumbling block by eating;

(21) it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

(22) Keep the faith [that] you have to yourself in the presence of God; blessed is the one who does not condemn himself for what he approves.

(23) But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because this is not from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.

Mark 1:40-45 (NIV)

(40) A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

(41) Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”

(42) Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

(43) Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning:

(44) “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”

(45) Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

The Wall of Judgment

I have to admit, I am lucky. I am lucky because as I start my career in ministry, I have had the opportunity to work alongside ministers like Pastor Judy and Pastor Skip who have a lot of experience that they have been able to share with me in many ways. One of those ways is evident today.

Over the past couple of weeks we have been looking at the walls we build around ourselves and our churches. This morning we look at the wall of Judgment. Now, there are lots of verses of scripture that talk about judgment, it is a recurring theme in many parts of the bible. So when Pastor Skip told me that Judgment is this week’s topic, I got excited because, unlike some other weeks, there is ample time taken throughout scripture on this topic. But then, he gave me the scripture we are going to be using, the short story of the leper from the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. I read over it a couple of times and while I could see a number of themes present, judgment was not one of them. This brings me back to being lucky. If it hadn’t been for the experience Pastor Skip has shared with me, I might never have seen the connection between our topic this week and the scripture I just read.

Judgment, you see, is an interesting topic for a number of reasons. So let’s start off by defining what judgment can mean. There are various definitions of this word. Here are just a few.

1.       The faculty of being able to make critical distinctions and achieve a balanced viewpoint.

2.       The decision or verdict pronounced by a court of law.

3.       A particular decision or opinion formed in a case in dispute or doubt.

4.       An estimation

5.       An opinion formed.

There are also a few definitions of judgment that deal with God.

1.       The estimate by God of the ultimate worthiness or unworthiness of the individual or of all mankind.

2.       God’s subsequent decision determining the final destinies of all individuals.

None of these definitions fit clearly into our scripture from Mark this morning. So how is it that we proceed with no clear link.

Well, let’s step back for a moment and not concentrate on the idea of judgment itself. You see our topic isn’t judgment itself, but rather the Wall of Judgment. We are looking at the walls we build around us that interfere with our ability to fulfill our calling as individuals and as the body of Christ on earth. So let us look at what we can mean by a Wall of Judgment. And let us look at how that wall can keep us separated from Christ and from each other.

The reading from Mark talks about a situation that existed in Jesus’ day. That situation was the division of people based on a perceived, and sometimes real, threat.

Leprosy itself was not a specific condition, but rather a variety of illnesses that in one way or another affected the skin. Leprosy could be anything from a rash to a flesh eating bacteria. People were scared to death of leprosy. People lived in absolute fear of leprosy and all those who had leprosy. Therefore, if you had a skin disease, you were made into an instant outsider.

In those days, the law that governed society came from the books of Moses. Specifically that which we today call Leviticus. Leviticus was very clear: “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ And he shall live alone, his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Lev. 13:45-46)

If you had leprosy you lost everything – job, family, place in the community – everything.  Just as with many other things, when someone loses everything, they get desperate. The leper in Mark who approaches Jesus shows his desperation by breaking the law, by coming into the city, and getting close enough to Jesus that he could talk to him. He is lucky that he wasn’t stoned. But Jesus has pity on this poor desperate leper and heals him.

This is where it gets interesting. You see, diseases were not understood then as they are today. Therefore, anyone who touched a leper was considered unclean. It was a kind of guilt by association. Jesus would have known this, yet he reached out and touched this man. Under normal circumstances both this man and Jesus would have had to go to the chief priest to prove their cleanliness and make the appropriate sacrifices before they could legally be welcomed back into the fold.

Of course, Jesus didn’t go to the chief priest, he didn’t become a leper, and he wasn’t perceived by those around him to have been contaminated.

If you remember a little earlier I talked of a division of people based on a perceived threat. That perception lies at the heart of the wall of Judgment that I want to talk about this morning. We all know that we are not supposed to judge others. This is not news. This is not a recent development. It is something that we have heard over and over our entire lives. This is especially true for those who have been active in church their whole lives. The Bible is very clear on this point. God is the only one who has the power and authority to judge. We do not.

Yet, as with many other things, our reality doesn’t work that way. We know we shouldn’t judge, but we do. In fact, it is very possible that of all our sins, this act of judging others is perhaps the most pervasive in our culture. Judgment is a necessity we tell ourselves. Besides most times we are not trying to play God or to usurp His power. Rather, we are trying to maintain the best influences in our lives. We are trying to make sure that we associate with those we should. We have a society that has rules and we have to make sure, to the best of our ability, that those rules are followed.

We live in a society where rules are important, and this is not a bad thing. If there were no rules, chaos would ensue. So it is important that we follow those rules and it is important that others follow those rules. However, it is very easy to go from a place where rules are important to a place where rules are and end in and of themselves. It is easy to forget that the rules are there for a different reason. The rules exist to keep peace, to provide stability, to enhance the lives of everyone. Yet, sometimes, many times we put such importance on the rules that we convert a helpful tool into something that actually counteracts its own purpose. When we put too much importance on those rules, we actually create a world in which there is less stability, there is less trust. This is what we call the wall of judgment.

Have I lost any of you yet? Well, let me give you an example. We read some scripture this morning from Romans. At first glance the reading is pretty straightforward in regards to judgment. However, the more you read the more you begin to wonder what is going on. For those who know a little about the early church it makes some sense. Yet, for those who are not acquainted with some of the problems of the early church, this reading begins to get confusing.

It begins with the simple statement, “Then let us no longer Judge one another, but rather resolve never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.”  This is pretty straightforward, but then it gets into a whole bunch of stuff about food. Why food? For those who know about the early church, you will remember that the early church was full of both Jews and Gentiles. Those of Jewish background had grown up living under pretty strict dietary standards that were laid out in the books of Moses. Those who were Gentiles didn’t come from a background with the same requirements. Therefore, the traditions surrounding what foods could and could not be eaten and the rules that regulated how food was to be eaten and prepared were different and this caused quite a bit of arguing in the early church. It was a pretty big debate. There was a lot of divisiveness over this topic. Some said these old traditions should be upheld in the new church. Others said that the fact that Jesus came and died for our sins created a new covenant and therefore, those old rules no longer applied.

This is a common problem in a lot of the early churches and you can see evidence of that in a number of the Epistles. The reading in Romans tries to deal with this ongoing argument. Basically, what is said is that if you want to keep with the old rules, fine. There is no harm in that. However, don’t judge someone else based on what they eat. Tradition is fine, however there is a new covenant here. There is a new church, and that new church doesn’t center itself upon the old covenant made with Moses. It centers itself based on the new covenant through Jesus Christ. So if you want to follow old rules, go right ahead, but if you are doing that and it causes one of your new brothers in Christ to misunderstand the new covenant, well, that is not OK. The word of God is paramount and any arguing over details that detract from the message is harmful to the whole church, and therefore is not in accordance with the message of love that is given to us through Christ.

So we have the divisions of a society that are reflected with how it treats those who suffer from leprosy or who are otherwise unclean. We have the early church struggling to come to terms with how their own understanding of their relationship with God has changed in the new reality of the message of Jesus Christ. And now, we are here, on this Sunday morning, wondering what we can learn.

So, I ask you, in order to define this wall of Judgment, who do we consider today as lepers? Who do we consider today to be serving God in a way we don’t think is right?

The answers to those questions are endless. I could come up with a list, but the list would be way to long to recount in a few minutes. But, let’s name a few.

1.       Immigrants

2.       Those whose skin is not our color.

3.       Those whose music we don’t like.

4.       Addicts – either of drugs, or alcohol, or some other destructive force.

5.       Criminals

6.       Those who profess other faiths.

7.       Those who love someone of their own gender.

8.       Those who are poor.

9.       Those who are rich.

10.   Those who speak a language different from our own.

The list can go on and on.  We live among lepers. Sometimes we might even be the leper and at other times we treat others like they are lepers. We judge based on things that we feel are legitimate concerns. We use this basis of judgment for one purpose, to separate. Yet, whether or not we intend on it, this separation is perceived as condemnation.

This judgment, this condemnation of others is based on fear, mistrust, misunderstanding, anger, loneliness, the inability to communicate, and so on and so forth. In so many ways, like the leper in our reading this morning, we move through life shrouded in desperation. Either we feel like a leper to the world, untouchable and unclean – or we have chosen others to be treated like lepers.

These divisions are our modern day examples of the food problem in the early church. The details have changed in 2000 years, but the situation is still the same. We build up walls, many of them, especially this wall of judgment, based on perceived threats, based on stereotypes. But in reality, this serves only to keep people apart. It is a form of leprosy that we willingly take on because it offers us a safe haven from having to interact with the other and the other unknown. It is just easier to adopt this form of leprosy than it is to risk reaching out and touching or being touched. It is not until human beings are able to see one another as children of God that we will be able to sit down and begin to try and understand one another. This is true not just for Muslims and Christians, or Muslims and Jews, it is also true for grown-ups and teenagers, for blacks and whites, for gay and straight, for liberals and conservatives, for old hymn lovers and new music lovers.

Jesus, reached out and touched the leper. In that act, he tore down that wall. He healed, he loved, he acted. You see, it is not just a matter of being willing to reach out and touch. We can control that. We can control when we reach out and we touch. No, it is also, perhaps more importantly, a matter of being willing to risk being touched, touched by God and changed, transformed, made whole.

This week, Steve Jobs passed away. I was listening to the news that day and heard a speech he made at Stanford University in 2005. Towards the end of that speech he mentioned something that I think fits in nicely with this message. He said,

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

This morning, these words ring true. As we gather to worship Jesus Christ and his message of love, of renewal, and of hope, let us remember that we have limited time to get it right. During our time, it is essential that we learn to tear down these walls that we spend so much time building up. It is only by tearing down these walls, by bearing our souls to our friends and neighbors, that we truly come to know not only the words of Christ, but we come to trust in him in our nakedness and we come to feel the message of Christ as it warms our hearts and souls.

May God bless us this morning, may he warm our hearts and souls, and may he give us the strength to trust in his message and the courage to live his message even when that means doing something we don’t want to, even when that means talking to someone we don’t want to talk to, and especially when that means loving someone we find hard to love. Amen!

 

The Wall of Caution

This sermon was delivered on September 25, 2011 and is the second that I gave in our series of "Beyond the walls."

Esther 4:3-17 (NIV)

(1)    In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

(2)    When Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them.

(3)    Then Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.

(4)    So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate.

(5)    Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews.

(6)    He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to urge her to go into the King’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.

(7)    Hathach went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said.

(8)    Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai,

(9)    “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold scepter to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”

(10)When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai,

(11)He sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape.

(12)For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

(13)Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai:

(14)“Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

(15)So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther’s instructions.

Over the past couple of weeks we have been looking at the various walls that we construct around ourselves and our church that impede our ability to fulfill the commission that we have been given in Christ. We first looked at the wall of Insecurity and last week we looked at the wall of self-interest. This week we are going to look at the wall of caution.

I had trouble with this message. Esther is an interesting book. As I was preparing, I looked to see when Esther appears in the lectionary. Guess what, there is only one Sunday in the three year lectionary cycle that Esther appears. That is it.

I had read Esther as a kid, but this was the first time I read through the entire book in a long time. Esther is a unique book. It is one of a few books in the old testament that are basically a historical story. It is one of only a few books in the entire Bible that carries the name of a woman. It is also, I think, the only book in the Bible that does not specifically deal with God acting in humanity. That might be a slight exaggeration, God’s hand can be implied in a number of passages in Esther, but it is never explicitly mentioned.

In addition to that, I had a real difficulty finding a way to talk about Esther’s story in a way that would suggest we should tear down this wall of caution. So, I guess the first place to start is what we mean by caution.

The dictionary defines caution as an alertness and prudence in a hazardous situation; care; wariness. Another definition can be a warning against danger or evil; anything serving as a warning.

None of this sounds bad, in fact, it sounds pretty good. Caution serves a valid purpose in our world. There are a lot of dangers around us. There are lots of people who would do us harm. There are plenty of situations that can lead us astray. This is a dangerous world. Caution serves a valuable purpose. If we weren’t cautious, so much evil could befall us.

So, why are we talking today about tearing down a wall that keeps us safe in this troubled world? Surely, God doesn’t want us to put ourselves needlessly in harm’s way. What could we or God gain from that?

This was the problem I was having this week. I did a lot of reading. I talked to Pastor Skip; I talked to Pastor JP Bohanan at Bethany. But, finally, thanks to this help, I saw this story in a different light.

So, let’s look at Esther again. What is going on in Esther’s head? She has been chosen to be queen. Depending on what Bible translation you are reading, the name of the King changes. However, in all likelihood, the King in this case is the famous King Xerxes of Persia, modern day Iran. The Jews are living in a land not their own, a world foreign to them in many ways. But, due to a twist of fate, Esther, a Jew, ends up being Queen. However, her true identity is not known by the King or anyone else in the kingdom other than her close family. In fact, she was instructed to keep her true identity a secret. Esther has grown accustomed in life to following commands. That ability has gotten her far in life. But now, events she has no control over are going to change her reality very fast.

Mordecai lets her know that her people are being put in danger. In addition, she is being asked to not only help her people, but in doing so she is being asked to make her identity known to the King. Even more than that, she has to speak to the King and doing that without being summoned puts her in at a real risk of being executed. She is scared. She is unsure of what she should do. What is the right thing to do?

She tells Mordecai these worries and his response is not really what she might have been hoping for. He doesn’t say I understand your fear. He doesn’t say we’ll figure out something else. No, Mordecai says, Esther, grow up. Wake up, you have to do something. I know it’s dangerous. Yes, you could even lose your life, but if you don’t there are consequences for that too.

In the end, things work out for Esther and the Jewish people throughout the kingdom. Haman, their adversary is hung on the very gallows he had built for Mordecai. His ten sons are also hung and everyone in the kingdom who attempts to hurt the Jewish people is killed, all by the king’s edict that Mordecai was asked to write with the King’s seal.

But in the moment, Esther didn’t know how the story was going to end. She was afraid, the wall of caution she had built around herself was doing its job and keeping her safe from what was a likely danger. Esther realized that God was calling her in that moment to go over that wall, to put herself out there, relying solely on her God to see her through. Indeed, had she resisted and stayed behind her wall, the story likely would have turned out quite differently.

There are times in all our lives when we are asked to do something, or put into a situation that requires we scale over that wall. Making the decision to do that is extremely difficult and frustrating and riddled with doubt.

When I was in high school and had the opportunity to go abroad for a year, I had lots of doubt. I had my life planned, in one way or another. I was going to graduate high school, go to college, then medical school, then become a doctor. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that that is what I wanted to do. But then, God put this opportunity in my life that I hadn’t planned on. Granted, it wasn’t a decision like that of Esther. There was danger, sure, but more than that, there was the fear of failure and the worry that taking that opportunity would change my plans.

But, I went for it. And guess what, it did change my life, my plan, my view of my own existence. It gave me the opportunity to see the world in a different way. It gave me the opportunity to see and know God in a totally different way. I stand here this morning certain that had I not taken that opportunity, my life would have turned out very different and I likely would not be here. I would not have met my wife, I would not have Ian and Mia, and I would have missed out on an opportunity that God had put in my path so that I could come to know him the way He wanted me to.

As I was talking to Pastor Bohanan this week, he told me of another story that fits into this theme even better. I had been reading about Wesley’s “Aldersgate Experience.” This is how Wesley himself talked about how he came to know Christ in a new and different way than he had known him as an Anglican priest. He had the opportunity to spend some time with Moravians. He learned a lot about his own faith through them, sometimes in good ways and sometimes in not so good ways. JP and I were talking about this. I knew of the Moravian church but I really didn’t understand what Wesley was talking about in detail. As JP was explaining part of it to me, he mentioned how the Moravians took the Great Commission to a whole new level. They believe in mission work and have taken some steps toward that goal that even today we would question. One story in particular stunned me.

The Moravians went throughout the world spreading the message of the Gospel to everyone they encountered. At one point, they wanted to go to the West Indies, the Caribbean. For a number of different reasons, they were unable to go there. Part of the reason was church politics of the day made it very hard for them, not being the Anglican Church, to go to British territories to spread their understanding of the gospel there. They looked and looked for a way to make that happen, but couldn’t find one. Finally, they came upon one way that they could get there. A number of them actually sold themselves into slavery so they could be sent to the West Indies to preach the gospel among their fellow slaves, most of who had just arrived from Africa. Wow! Now that is a story of not just scaling over the wall of caution, but dismantling it stone by stone.

Now, we don’t have to sell ourselves into slavery. But, Christianity is full of stories like this. Let me ask you another question. Have you ever faced a decisive moment and crossed your fingers? We have seen it happen on thousands of occasions: a team in the final minutes of a game is down to one final shot that will determine the victor, many supporters in the crowd cross their fingers. A person who is hoping to receive good news in an upcoming announcement secretly crosses his fingers. A crossed finger in these instances is a form of body language that expresses hope and faith.

When a person is expressing a false hope or is attempting to disguise a true feeling, he or she often crosses his fingers, but does so behind his back. It indicates that the words being spoken are not really a true expression of how one feels; they are a lie. Crossed fingers give insight into depth of our desires and emotions.

Nearly everyone has experienced an occasion in which they have crossed their fingers. Most however, did not know that the crossed finger first originated with Christians. When it was first used, it had nothing at all to do with luck. It was a secret code. In the early days of the Church it was dangerous to be a Christian. Our faith was unpopular and illegal. Many who believed were tortured and fed to lions for sport. There were times when Christians were hated so badly that even a casual association with followers of the cross could mean death. When those who were Christians, met another Christian they would use “body language” or crossed fingers to indicate that they too were believers. If someone approached that they were unsure about, they would quickly hide their crossed fingers behind their back to disguise their identity. Crossed fingers represented the Cross of Christ. It indicated that a situation had been placed in the hands of God. It suggested that the believer was hoping and praying for victory in Christ. The blessing associated with crossed fingers for many was, “May Christ be victorious in my hour of need!”

That is significant, especially in the light of the words of the text from Psalm 23. We read the words “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” There are two words that leap from this passage “though” and “through.” The only difference between the two words is the letter “r”. In American Sign Language, the letter “r” is made by crossing the middle finger over the index finger. It’s the sign of the cross.

The difference between our “though” situations and our “through” situations is the “r” the presence of Christ victorious in our hour of need. Without the cross, there is no “through” only a “though.”

Though we may walk in the darkness of a moment, our hope is that Christ is victorious in our hour of need so we walk through the dark moment fearing nothing, our hope and trust has been placed in God’s hand.

As Christians, we may not cross our fingers as much as early believers, but we do maintain hope and faith that in any given situation, Christ will be the victor. We don’t hide that hope or faith behind our backs, but only declare to the world, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

From Esther we learn that God leads us to know his will. While we don’t need to take needless risks, sometimes the road God sets before us is littered with many dangers. Yet, we must continue on through the dangers.

The wall of caution is a tricky one. Sometimes caution can help us. But caution is risk-averse. God is not. God doesn’t work in terms of risk, or odds, or probabilities. God is there, calling us to him, sometimes on soft sand, and sometimes over minefields. So, let us learn from Esther. We can’t know the outcome, but if we follow where God leads, we end up closer to Him, and if we perish, so be it. We perish in the work of God, for the people of God, and there is nothing to fear in that.

The Wall of Insecurity

This sermon was the first in a series on the walls that we build around ourselves and our churches that impede our ability to fulfill our mission of spreading the gospel. This sermon was delivered on September 11, 2011.

Exodus 3:1-22 (NAB)

1)      Meanwhile Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

2)      There an angel of the Lord appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush. As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed.

3)      So Moses decided, “I must go over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned.”

4)      When the Lord saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.”

5)      God said, “Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.

6)      I am the God of your father,” he continued, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

7)      But the Lord said, “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering.

8)      Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the country of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

9)      So indeed the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have truly noted that the Egyptians are oppressing them.

10)   Come, now! I will send you to Pharaoh to lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

11)   But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and lead the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12)   He answered, “I will be with you; and this shall be your proof that it is I who have sent you: when you bring my people, you will worship God on this very mountain.”

13)   “But,” said Moses to God, “when I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?”

14)   God replied, “I am who am.” Then he added, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you.”

15)   God spoke further to Moses, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is my title for all generations.

16)   Go and assemble the elders of the Israelites, and tell them: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to me and said: I am concerned about you and about the way you are being treated in Egypt;

17)   So I have decided to lead you up out of the misery of Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.

18)   Thus they will heed your message. Then you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him: The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent us word. Permit us, then, to go a three days’ journey in the desert, that we may offer sacrifice to the LORD, our God.

19)   Yet I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go unless he is forced.

20)   I will stretch out my hand, therefore, and smite Egypt by doing all kinds of wondrous deeds there. After that he will send you away.

21)   I will even make the Egyptians so well-disposed toward this people that, when you leave, you will not go empty-handed.

22)   Every woman shall ask her neighbor and her house guest for silver and gold articles and for clothing to put on your sons and daughters. Thus you will despoil the Egyptians.”

THE WALL OF INSECURITY

Over the next few weeks, we are going to be participating in a sermon series. This series will not just be something that we are doing here at St. Paul’s and Grace, but Pastor Skip will be leading Otterbein through the same series and when he is here, he will continue in this series as well. In addition to this, Pastor Jon Bausman at Aldersgate will be working through this series as well. These four churches will be walking down this journey together and I hope that you come to be encouraged by the words which will be spoken over the next couple of weeks.

So to start off I have a question for you. Have you ever thought about the purpose of walls? Walls define space; they identify an area and most likely say something about how that area is designated to be used. In our homes there are walls that define where we cook, dine, sleep, relax, park the car, shower, study, etc… Walls say something about what’s supposed to happen in a certain area and what isn’t. We don’t sleep in the kitchen, nor do we cook in the bathroom! Have you even noticed how older homes often have more walls than many newer homes? Designated areas in an older home are much more defined and structured, where the kitchen, dining room and living room each have four walls like a box. Whereas, in many newer homes there may be no walls separating the kitchen, dining room, and living room, creating more of a free flowing and open environment where the cook and the family and guests can all intermingle as dinner is being prepared! There’s more disclosure and it provides a greater opportunity for personal exchange and relationship building.

Friends, there are walls that our society has built that are much more serious than the walls in our homes. These are walls that divide people, drawing a definite line between the rich and the poor, the privileged and the under privileged, the free and the oppressed, the educated and the less fortunate. These types of social walls create sides and define who’s in and who’s out!

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan spoke to the people of West Berlin at the base of the Brandenburg Gate, near the Berlin Wall. Due to the amplification system being used, the President’s words could also be heard on the Eastern side of the wall, the communist-controlled side. The address Reagan delivered that day is considered by many to have affirmed the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the fall of communism. On Nov. 9-11, 1989, the people of a free Berlin tore down that wall. Of all his speeches, Ronald Reagan’s “tear down that wall,” address may well become the “Great Communicator’s” best remembered.

Sometimes we in the church have allowed the walls to divide us and them. The walls of the church building become this buffer between the reality of a hurting imperfect world and our dream of personal wholeness and safety. We bunker down within these walls in an effort to withdraw from the pain of the world, when Jesus calls us to follow him into the very center of human hurt, embracing the very cross on which Jesus died. Sometimes we’ve become so infatuated with our walls that we go as far as to call the building (these walls of bricks and mortar) “the church”! Sisters and brothers, the facility where we meet, as stunningly beautiful as it is, is not the church… it’s where the church meets, where disciples are made and inspired, so that we would go out into the community and BE the church. You and I are the church, we are the church together and if what we do inside these walls never impacts and transforms the community in which we live; then my friends, we are no longer the church! For the primary purpose of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Therefore, when we are actively being the church beyond the walls of where the church meets, then we are living Christ’s greater vision of making disciples of Jesus Christ. And, if we’re making disciples of Jesus Christ, then the church embodies what it means to be the hope of the world!

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be looking at the different walls that we build up in our lives and in our church. To tear down these walls, we need first to understand what they are and how they are built. We will be looking at the walls of prejudice, insecurity, fear, oppression, complacency, and others. During this time, we will be challenged to put our faith into action and begin to seriously consider how we can make a difference in our very own back yard…in the city of York.

Today, we start off with our first wall. I think, however, that in doing so, we also need to look at the larger significance of this day. September 11, 2011. I am willing to bet that if I asked you what you were doing at this exact moment, ten years ago, you each would be able to tell me in explicit detail what you were doing, how your day changed due to the events around you, and how these past ten years were changed because of that day that we remember today.

My story isn’t all that exciting. I was a senior in college. Tuesday mornings I would get up and get ready for class. I had a class at 9:30. A close friend lived in the room right next to me and he also had a class at that same time in the same building. So, we would walk together. I knocked on his door and went in and found him on his computer. He grew up in Queens, his parents own a business in Manhattan and he had got an email from his dad telling him about the first plane. Bucknell did not allow television in the dorm rooms, so we were unaware of everything that was going on. Planes had hit the towers before, so we thought that it was a small private plane, and as sad as it was, it wasn’t something that caught our attention that much. We got to class and everything was normal. Class ended at 11am, at which point we would meet up again and head down to the student center for lunch. When we got there, we were surprised by how many people were there, gathered, in front of the television. It was at that point, we realized what had happened.

We ran back to the dorm to get our other two friends, who like normal college guys, were just getting out of bed. My uncle at that time, worked at the Pentagon. So, my first concern was talking to my family to see if he was ok. I talked to my parents, but no one was able to contact him as of that time. It wasn’t until late in the evening that we finally had confirmation that he was ok.

I was lucky; I didn’t know any of the thousands of people who lost their lives that day. Yet, I remember sitting in one of my classes. We didn’t do classwork that day; rather, the professors used the opportunity to talk about what was going on. I will never forget my one professor, an economist, and his reaction. He had taught a number of individuals who went on to work at the World Trade Center. He kept in touch with many of them. As we were sitting in his class, he started crying a little, realizing that it was very possible that some of them were among those who died. It was a day, none of us will ever forget, of that I am sure.

There is something else I remember doing that day, though. There wasn’t a whole lot that we could do at Bucknell to help, except for one thing. We could give blood. A bloodmobile was set up, and the line to give blood was long. It seemed as if everyone came that day to do the one thing that could be done. I tried to give, but I couldn’t. My junior year was spent abroad and, while having been in Argentina and Chile would not have been a problem. However, my second semester I spent in Barbados, and during that time, I took a week and went to Venezuela. Because of that, the Red Cross could not accept my blood.

My story is nothing heroic, but it is probably very common. I am sure that anyone here could tell me with just as much detail, what they did that day. That day we were left affected, we were changed, and our lives were altered in literally hundreds if not thousands of ways. I also remember what happened over the following weeks and months. I have to say, if there was anything positive to come out of that horrific day it was the unification of people all across this great land, it was our ability to band together, despite our differences to respond. Sometimes that response was someone putting on camouflage, and grabbing a gun and enlisting. Sometimes that response was the thousands of first responders all across the country that left their homes and travelled to New York or Washington or Shanksville to help in any way they could. Sometimes that response was a line of college students waiting to give blood. Sometimes that response was walking outside and talking to those neighbors who moved in two months ago, the ones that play their music too loud and don’t cut their grass often enough. And sometimes, that response was sitting down in a quiet room, and praying, praying to God to help us understand, help us cope, help us heal.

However you responded that day, the beauty was that we were one people. After two hundred years of History, this great land became one. For that day, in most cases, it didn’t matter what your color of skin was, it didn’t matter what language you speak, and it didn’t matter your age, your hometown, your political persuasion. It didn’t matter; we were all one and the same. What a beautiful thing that was.

We each reacted and we each responded in important ways, some of those ways were easier than others, but in most cases, those responses would not have happened had those planes never have crashed. Good can come out of evil. God can make miracles out of total despair.

But, after a while, things went back to normal. We started to build our walls back up. We stopped talking to our neighbors. We started seeing our political persuasions as more important than the needs of those around us. We started blaming everyone for everything again. The walls went back up.

With the tumbling walls of the Trade Towers, we started to remember our insecurity and we started building up all kinds of walls to preserve our freedoms.

Moses has had the same journey. He fled to the desert for his life, and he has built a good life there. In doing so, he built walls between where he was and the good life he left behind. He built up walls of distance, anonymity, and time. And those walls served their purpose for forty years!!!!! But one day, Moses takes out his father-in-laws flock. And that day, those walls come crumbling down.

When God shows up in a burning bush to call Moses out of the safe place he has been living, he turns into a bundle of insecurity. The Lord is calling Moses back to the cause that got him in trouble in the first place. The Lord is calling Moses back to seek freedom for his people. But, Moses doesn’t want to move out of his life, and he hides behind the wall of insecurity.

So now we come to the part of the scripture where we see God give Moses his mission, his call. God doesn’t just tell Moses to go do this. He explains the need to Moses and gives Moses the chance to get behind it. He tells Moses about the suffering of the people of Israel and how he has heard this suffering and is going to act on their behalf. When God calls us he prepares us for this by making the need known to us. He gets excited about making a difference. He fills us with a passion for that which he sends us to. If he is calling us to mission work, he fills us with a passion for the lost. If he is calling us to ministries of compassion and justice, he fills us with a passion for the poor and the weak. If he is calling us to work with children, he fills us with a passion for the young.

A few years ago a movie came out called Amazing Grace. The movie is about William Wilberforce and his crusade in 18^th century Britain to end the slave trade.  William felt that God called him to this mission and he worked at it year after year of failure and frustration. He almost died because the mission he was on made him so sick. And many of those who he worked with including a black former slave minister, Equiano, died before the mission was realized. It makes me wonder, does God call you to something that he won’t equip you for? I don’t believe so. I believe that God does equip us with every good gift we need to fulfill the mission he has called us to. Sometimes we might not see the results of what he is working through us, but at the same time, God doesn’t send us out there on our own just to watch us fail. God gave Moses the things he needed to lead the people of Israel. He gave William Wilberforce what he needed to put an end to the slave trade in Britain. He will give you what you need to do what he asks of you.

But we, like Moses, can argue with him about this. We can make excuses. We’re too old, we’re too young, we don’t know what we’re doing, nobody will take us seriously, we’ve already got too much going on in our lives with work and family, we cannot commit to something else, anyway that’s the pastor’s job, isn’t it? The list of excuses can go on and on. But if God is really calling us to a ministry, the excuses will not last. I have had to deal with God’s calling in ways that I could not have imagined. I have talked to a lot of other ministers about their calling. One thing I hear is that they fought and fought and fought against that calling. They talk about how God eventually wore them down and here they were in ministry. Their stories were always told as “don’t let this happen to you” stories. There is no pride in their struggle with God. It is not something that they are happy they did. They all wish they had given in to God’s will sooner. They wish they hadn’t spent so much time arguing with God.

But, sometimes, God calls us to other opportunities that are not traditional pastoral ministry. We may be called to ministry within our church, within our community, within our families. This ministry looks different for each of us. What is God calling for you to do? Don’t believe for a second that God is done with you. He still has a use for each of us. And don’t believe that he only calls some of his children to ministry. We are all called to lives to lives of ministry in all we do. So what is God calling you to? How does he want you to serve him? How are you able to serve? Open yourself up to God’s call. Listen to see where he might send you. And when he calls, follow.

This is the hardest part. This is when that wall of insecurity is the hardest to scale over.

Moses realized that he had no option but to go where God led. He argued. He tried to keep that wall from falling down. He said, I can’t convince Israel that I was chosen. I can’t speak in public. I can’t convince the Pharaoh to let them go free. I am not the right person. Pick someone else. Pick anyone else. Pick anyone but me. Moses is insecure. He doesn’t believe he can do what God knows he can do.

But, Moses discovered that as God called him to ministry, God provided his resources for him in ministry. God will do the same for you.

The Lord moves Moses into the security of his presence by lavishing his grace on him, and filling his heart to overflowing, so Moses can take his eyes off himself and put them on the needs of others, in the same way that Paul calls the Philippians to find a secure place in Christ through a Christ graced attitude, authority, and activism.

Moses has a long way to go, but he goes. He goes because God has moved Moses out of having no one but himself into a life built on the Lord as his life and his salvation.

We all suffer from this wall of insecurity. We suffer from it and yet we continue to build it up. It is shameful to us to show our own insecurity, but in reality, it should not be at all. Think of one of the greatest gifts that God can give. A baby, a newborn baby. You hold a newborn in your arms and marvel at this little ball of beauty and perfection.

Think about this new baby though. This new baby relies on parents and siblings and others for every need and want that it has. Parents supply those needs, and we do it with an internal joy because that is our job. We are happy when we can supply our babies with that which they need to survive and thrive.

Our relationship with Christ is the same, my friends. When we depend on God and go to him with our insecurities, he relishes that and supplies our needs. The loving parent of us all.

Today, as we remember the horrific events of ten years ago, let us remember too that God calls us to respond to Him by working together, by BEING the church in the community where we live, by LOVING those around us, by HELPING everyone we can, and by RESPONDING to Him and each other. In this way, we come to know that with him, anything is possible. Anything is possible when we live WITH others around us, and THROUGH Him and his call to each of us.

Open the Door to Reconciliation

This sermon was delivered on September 4, 2011 at St. Paul's UMC in York, Pennsylvania.

Matthew 18:15-20 (NAB)

1)      “If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.

2)      If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’

3)      If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

4)      Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

5)      Again, [amen,] I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.

6)      For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

I must start out this morning by admitting I got a little nervous when I read the gospel reading this morning. I got nervous because the reading immediately brought to mind my own brother. It brought to mind not only my own brother, but rather the relationship that I have always had with my brother.

My brother, whose name is Adam, is younger than me by 18 months. I have learned over this time that 18 months of age difference between two brothers is the exact amount of time that is required to ensure a lifelong animosity. Incidentally, 18 months is also the amount of time it takes for either of us to acknowledge something we have done to one another, it is the amount of time it takes to apologize, and it is the amount of time it takes for the other to accept the apology and move on.

Long story short, when I read the gospel this morning, I heard it speaking directly to me. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever read a piece of scripture and realized that it was directed at you, and not only was it directed at you, but it was directed at you in a bad way, pointing out a flaw, an error, a mistake that you have made, or continue to make. And you realize that at that moment, you and God are on the same page about your flaw. You’ve known God has always thought so, but at that moment in time you realized that you were the one making the mistake, you were the one whose behavior needed to change. It is easy when we read scripture and can point out others who fall into those categories. But it is something else entirely when we see ourselves in that way.

Truth be told, we don’t like it at all. In fact, I would be lying if I said that it doesn’t bother us. I would be lying if I said that when that happens we honestly accept our faults and attempt to change in order to be more in line with what God instructs. The truth is, most times we don’t. It is just too hard to change. It is just too hard to admit mistakes, especially when they are our own.

That happened to me recently. I don’t see my brother that often. Sometimes, I like it that way. I go months without seeing him at all. When we do talk, it is mostly through text messages. We rarely talk on the actual phone. It makes me uncomfortable to talk to him, and I bet it makes him uncomfortable to talk to me. The only time we talk is if we are in the same room or if Eimy or my mother makes us talk on the phone. And you know what, I hate that. I really hate that I have that type of a relationship with my own brother.

But, you see, it is His fault. I have always been willing to look past his defects. I have always been accepting of his differences. He’s the one that has never accepted me for who I am. He is the one who is being the one that won’t accept. He is the one who won’t open up. He is the one who won’t love me the way that I want to be loved.

I did see him recently. We got to talking, which after two or three minutes turned into the usual inquisition. The usual questions started. Why didn’t I finish my master’s degree like I had planned? Why, when I was looking for work, didn’t I follow through with the leads he had given me? Why wasn’t I working somewhere that I could make a better living and provide better for my kids? I guess it came down to the underlying question, the one that was never asked but was understood. Why wasn’t I more like him?

However, I bet if you asked him, you would get a different version of the story. You see, I left something out about our conversation. My brother did say something that took me by surprise. It is something that he has said before, but not that often. He is not the kind of person who wears his heart on his sleeve. He is very much a type A personality. He is very much like my father. My brother said to me, that he loved me to death. These questions, these inquisitions, were not made in disgust or in frustration but in an attempt to understand me better. In his own way, a way that sometimes seems foreign to me, he just wants to understand me better. He wants to love me in a way that he can and in a way that I can understand. As I look back on our relationship over the past year or so, I came to the realization that things have changed. We still converse via text message, but much of that has been started by me. He actually has called me a couple of times. He asked Eimy and the kids and I to go on vacation with him to Portland, somewhere neither of us had ever been. He had been seeking reconciliation, and me, in my own version of stupidity, couldn’t recognize it.

You see, reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel message this morning. It is a nice thought. Let’s reconcile our differences, but reconciliation is an action that is very hard to do in all reality. Think about it. Is there anything harder than confronting someone who has grieved you? Especially when it is someone you know well? It is so much easier for us to take our grievance to someone else – to talk about it to anyone else who will listen. Anyone else that is, except the one we ought to. But this is what the gospel is all about. It is about how we should behave if we are indeed going to call ourselves members of God’s family.

Let’s take a moment and look at what is going on in this straightforward gospel passage.

There are no secrets here. We don’t have to look too far beyond the images Jesus uses in order to understand what he is saying.

In addition, it is often helpful to look at what comes before and after the Sunday passage. The whole of chapter 18 talks about our behavior as God’s people. In verse 1, the disciples ask Jesus who the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is, and he says it is anyone who is like a little child. In fact, he says unless you become like a child, you cannot enter the kingdom. And worse, anyone who causes the downfall of a child would be better thrown into the sea and drowned.

Then he told the parable of the lost sheep. The good shepherd leaves the 99 and goes to find the one that is lost.

Today’s gospel follows directly after this parable. All of this concerns what our faith life should be like. Bottom line: we should look after one another and be honest with one another. But of course, that is not as easy as it sounds, and we know this. We often fail, even in the best of circumstances – or more accurately, in what we know should be the best of circumstances. But this is life. Gossip happens and people are wronged in many different ways. We all make poor choices at times. We are human; life here will never be perfect.

So this gospel talks about reconciliation. Reconciliation, because our actions have an impact not only on the one person we have wronged, but on the whole community. Because we are the people of God, what we do affects the whole.

A few years ago you may have started hearing about something called the “Butterfly Effect.” This idea supposes that everything on earth is interconnected. The name comes from the idea that if a butterfly flutters its wings in Japan, or York, or anywhere on earth, the air movement is affected on the other side of the world. It sounds a bit extreme, however, there is some truth to it. This is especially true in communities. We show that in the way we worship together. That’s why we baptize and confirm people within a community celebration. That is why we say the confession and pass the peace together. That is why we say, “We” believe in one God. That is why our hymns have a lot of “we” and “us” in them instead of “me” and “I”.

So, Jesus says, go to the one who wronged you. If that doesn’t work, go to the community. Now, more than one thing can happen. Going to the community means sharing perceptions. Maybe we’ve misunderstood what someone has done. The community could help us see our misperceptions – see things in a different light, so to speak. Maybe it turns out that we have not been wronged at all.

But if the other is at fault, he says, and if the community doesn’t seem to be able to help, treat this person as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. His disciples would understand that image immediately. A gentile or a tax collector was about as much of an outsider as you could be in Jesus’ culture. They could be pushed aside, they could be ignored.

Except, these same disciples had seen how Jesus treated gentiles and tax collectors.

Remember the story in Matthew about the Canaanite woman. Remember how Jesus was forced to go beyond the cultural boundary and extend his care and healing to a gentile? Jesus also called a tax collector to be in his closest circle of disciples.

So, evidently, we can’t put limits to our forgiveness either. We can’t say, “OK, fine, that didn’t work. I don’t have to do anything more.” Reconciliation means the door to forgiveness has to stay open. But there is more! When we wrong others, we must repent.

This is key. There are at least two groups in this church that not only believe this, but put it into practice daily. Do you know who they are? I don’t know if any of you have ever been a member of AA or NA. If you haven’t, that is ok. But if you have, you know that one of the 12 steps is acknowledging that your actions have impacted those around you. And not only acknowledging it, but apologizing for it and making amends for it.

Truth be told, one of the most important ministries that St. Paul’s does is providing a safe place for these groups to meet. However, it is also important to realize that we as a church have a lot to learn from them as well. Because they not only serve to teach us the value of reconciliation, but they also understand that it is in a group where this reconciliation makes the most impact.

And that is the point that Jesus ends with in today’s gospel. Wherever two are three are gathered in my name, I am there. There are more than two or three here this morning, can you feel His presence with us? I hope you can.

Anyone who has ever been in a meeting of NA or AA or any other of a dozen similar groups will tell you that Christ’s presence there is so apparent that everyone can feel it.

Faith is not something that you can do by yourself. It has to happen among a community. Whether it is a community like St. Pauls, or a community like NA or AA, or even a community of friends, our faith grows strong when it is shared.

If we want our life as a church to grow, we need to work constantly on our witness. Others must see us care for each other. They should hear us speak kindly of one another and they should see us forgive and ask forgiveness.

It is not always easy, and we won’t always do it. But as we try to live as we are called to live, we have only to remember that Jesus said, “Where two are three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”

I hope that as you go about your lives this week you will keep in mind these words. I hope that you will look in your own life and forgive those who need your forgiveness. I hope that you will seek forgiveness with those who you may have wronged. I hope you will think of more ways that St. Pauls can be a beacon of faith in this community and find ways to show this. I hope that you will make a point to speak well of each other, to speak well of this church, to speak well of the ministries that we support. I hope you will make a point to support and learn from those ministries like NA and AA and the good that they do. I hope that you will make a point to welcome a member of Shekinah to our building and our community and give thanks that we are able to share the community of faith with such a wonderful congregation like Shekinah.

It is not going to be easy, I know for me. One thing I am going to do is talk to my brother. I am going to tell him that I love him to death too. I am going to make sure that he knows that I respect and admire him and I am going to tell him that in many ways he reminds me of my father. I see a lot of my father in him and for that I am thankful. I might not see him that often, but at least for now, I have realized I have a lot to learn from him, even though we have wronged each other so much in the past, we can move forward with the knowledge that if we ask for Christ to guide our love for each other, the road ahead will be a little easier and a lot brighter.

Amen!