Text: Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Theme: Faithfulness in A Jar
The Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
September 26, 2010
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
The Rev. Paul R. Dunklau
+In the Name of Jesus+
The first few words of today’s message are directed to the dear members of First Presbyterian Church of Denton right here and right now: You are to be affirmed; you are to be commended; you are to be complimented; you are worthy of your high fives; you are to be congratulated for a very good reason: you have sat in these pews, a number of you at the same place, for many Christmases, Easters, numerous Sundays, and countless years. You have heard the Word of God proclaimed from this pulpit time and time again. Even if the minister is moving around the chancel and up and down the aisles, at least the pulpit still stand there like the Word of God: fixed and immoveable. “The grass withers; the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever,” the Scriptures declare. You have heard sermons, homilies, meditations, messages. Some were great; some were good; some were average, some were sub-par, some – you might have said on your way home – “just plain stunk”. We remember that the speakers that have stood here were and are very human.
Now, to members, visitors, guests, and all of you: as this new pastorate begins, I pledge to proclaim the Word of God to the best of my ability, to rightly handle the Word of truth; to put forth the Law of God in all its severity and the Gospel in all its sweetness; to share the advent of the kingdom of God in the world and among us. As far as my sermons are concerned, I have a personal goal. I’ll use a baseball metaphor to describe it. From this pulpit, I will rarely hit a grand slam; occasionally I may hit a home run. Of course, I’ll take a triple or a double. But my hope is that I can at least get “on base” with you each and every week. In addition, I want you to know that I hope be a kind of spiritual janitor, used by God, to clear away the crap, so that the gentle and powerful Spirit of Jesus Christ can come into your lives and do the gentle and powerful work that the gentle and powerful Spirit of Christ does.
As hard as it is to believe, we’re actually less than three months away from Christmas. Remember with me that first verse from the Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem”:
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
Don’t leave it at Christmas Eve, take it one step further. The “hopes and fears” of all the years are met every time you and I gather in this place and at this hour. We bring our hopes, and we ask: will they materialize? We bring our fears, and we ask: will they be realized? We bring our sins, and ask: will they be pulverized or sanitized? We bring our souls, and ask: will they be mesmerized? We bring our faith, and we ask: will it be galvanized? We bring our lives, and we ask: will they be energized? About the last thing we want is to leave feeling demoralized.
Periodically, like I shared with the children, it’s important to review some basics – as I did with the robe and stole. The same goes with preaching. What’s the point of preaching when you get right down to it? Is it to be talked at or preached at for no less than fifteen minutes and no more than twenty five? I heard the story of a minister who got up to preach the Sunday sermon. On that day, he delivered the entire Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ – found in Matthew’s Gospel, chapters 5-7 – by memory. At the end, one older worshipper said to a person sitting close by, “That was nice, but I wish he would have preached a real sermon!” What is a real sermon? Is it religious entertainment with a few select Bible passages thrown in to show we’re not kidding around? In these days of entertainment evangelism, it’s a good question to ask.
I heard an ad on the radio about a big gathering in Dallas coming up. We even got a piece of mail on it here in the office. A bunch of famous folks are getting together on stage for a seminar on success. Laura Bush, Troy Aikman, Rudy Guiliani, Robert Schuller, Zig Ziglar, and General Colin Powell are among the notables scheduled to appear. I’m sure some good ideas on success will be shared. Carrying that forward, is that what a sermon is supposed to do, to give you some good ideas on how to be a successful Christian in today’s world? People today talk about having not enough time for this or that; they say that they have “a lot on their plate.” They do; I’m not denying that at all. But does the worth of the Christian message consist in how well it delivers time management techniques? Is the point of a sermon to keep the current members coming and, I might add, giving? Is the goal to draw a bigger crowd while we keep an eye on our counterpart down the street and hope that maybe someday we, too, can have Denton Police officers direct traffic out of our packed parking lot?
This past Monday I met a man whose father is a minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. I told him that last Sunday I was ordained in the Presbyterian Church and I was wondering if he heard of Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church. He said that he had. I said that, as far as Presbyterians go, it was a big one – having over three thousand members. He told me that Preston Hollow Baptist Church has over thirty thousand members. FPC Denton has a little over one third of one percent of the membership of Prestonwood Baptist. Is that what solid Biblical preaching is all about, to get from one third of one percent to thirty thousand or more? At the end of John chapter six, Jesus had only twelve people with Him, and one would betray Him. Numbers are important, but they’re not all-important. Oh, the guy told me they have a Starbucks inside Prestonwood too.
Is good preaching a matter of therapy with a spiritual twist? Is it all about reassuring people that God is there for them when they’re fit to be tied because I-35 is a parking lot during rush hour? Is it about psychology? Does it consist of telling people that “I’m okay and you’re okay”? Is it about saying to people “There, there now, it’s going to be alright”? Is good preaching saying that “God loves you and the rest of us are working on it? “ Does it show people how to stop climbing up the metaphorical escalators of life that are actually going down?
You deserve to know your new minister’s view of preaching, and I’m going to share the main points now. I don’t ever want to preach at people or down to people. I want to preach alongside people because we’re in this together. For the first twenty five years of my life I sat in the pews like you are. I went into seminary in 1983 with a handful of thoughts about what a solid sermon was all about. It had consistent elements that kept boiling down to about five items.
It was based, for starters, on a Bible text. Secondly, it had a kind of awareness to it – both in terms of its hearers and of current events that are swirling around their lives. Third, it spoke in language that people could understand; it was not professorial; it did not condescend to them, and neither was it an exercise of the minister’s ego. Here’s the fourth element: it was centered like a laser-beam on the person and work of Jesus Christ – the crucified and risen Son of God, the promised Messiah, and the Savior of the world. A professor of mine once said: “A solid sermon has legs and a mouth. It stands up and speaks out for Jesus Christ.” Fifth, the solid sermon has a goal. It can be a faith goal or a life goal. It seeks to instigate, to ignite, to instill, to inspire, and to enhance that great gift of faith in God. The solid sermon can help you discern what God would have you do with your life right here and right now, and it will help you make use of the resources that God has provided so that such can happen. There you have it; I just wanted you to know.
So we come to this morning’s Bible text, the Old Testament reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah. The events recorded took place nearly twenty seven hundred years ago – far across the Atlantic ocean, through the Mediterranean Sea, all the way to the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean, to a day’s journey or so going further east on land. In short, it was long ago and it was far away – a “once upon a time” kind of thing. Immediately, the critics scoff. How can obscure events twenty seven hundred years ago have any relevance to the here and the now with our ever so modern and ever so urgent problems? Let St. Paul respond to that question. It’s in his letter to the Roman Christians. Commenting on the Scriptures, he says: “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Is it irrelevant to endure? Is it irrelevant to be encouraged? Is it irrelevant to have hope? It seems to me that these are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual commodities that people are crying out for!
Think for a moment about the biggest problem you have had to face in life. Maybe it happened long ago. Maybe it’s going on right now. Whatever the case, it was or is huge. How do we deal with or handle the big problems? There are only a few ways. One way is to get away – or, in other words, to deny that the problem even exists. I remember the story of the farmer and his wife who went down into the cellar when a tornado came that eventually destroyed their house and barn. They climbed out of the cellar and looked around. The wife began to cry. The farmer said, “At least the wind ain’t blowin’ and the rain ain’t comin’ down anymore.” Another way is to go around the problem. You admit that it is a problem; you fuss and moan and groan about it, but you really don’t do anything about. Another way is to go through it alone. That has people saying “I can handle it; it’s my problem, and I’ll deal with it.” You take, as they say, “ownership” of it but you refuse to ask for help. And here’s a final way: acknowledge the problem; hand it over to God, and walk through it with Him!
Last week I read that Billy Graham, probably one of the most famous preachers in the history of Christianity, has met with every U.S. president since Harry Truman. Speaking of President Truman, Truman, oddly, didn’t care much for Billy Graham. In his biography, Plain Speaking, he is reported to have said: “He was never a friend of mine when I was president. I just don’t go for people like that. All he’s interested in is getting his name in the paper.”
Long ago and far away in the city of Jerusalem, sat a King of Judah by the name of Zedekiah. Zedekiah had a problem of the huge variety. His nation, which he governed, was about to be besieged, attacked, and destroyed. The survivors would become refugees and be deported. It is not as though he hadn’t been warned. That pesky little prophet Jeremiah, the representative of Yahweh, had been foretelling that for quite some time.
In the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma, there’s a verse that goes like this: “We know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand.” That’s what the child of God, the child of Yahweh, thought about the promised land which was the land they inhabited: it was grand. Their identity was tied up with it. But now they would lose it and, with it, their identity.
What did the king do? He put that pesky little prophet, the representative of Yahweh, under house arrest. Like Truman didn’t care for Graham, Zedekiah didn’t care for Jeremiah. He had been an equal opportunity irritant who had bothered Zedekiah and his last four predecessors.
Zedekiah’s handling of the problem was a combination of the first three ways I mentioned: denial of the problem, trying to get around the problem, trying to go through the problem alone.
Meanwhile, Yahweh slips into the story. Quietly, unobtrusively, and with only a few people knowing it, God, in so many words, tells Jeremiah to get hold of his cousin and then purchase the cousin’s land. Buy the property. Close the deal. Render payment in full. Sign the papers, have them notarized, and store them in safe place. Back then, that safe place was an earthenware jar. Today it might be a file cabinet under lock and key, or a bank vault, or a pdf file on computer connected to a secure database.
This little incident has to be close to the lunatic fringe. I mean, the last straw was on the horizon; the enemy was at the gate; the country would cease to exist; the promised land would be stripped from its people and their identity along with it. We need God to charge in with the F-16s and the 82nd airborne! God tells Jeremiah, “Buy some land.” What? Huh? That’s sheer lunacy. I hope Jeremiah bought it on the cheap – because the bottom was about to fall out of the Judean housing market! There wouldn’t even be a Judean housing market anymore.
But Yahweh, God, our God, as is God’s way, is always ahead of the curve; like a grand master at chess, God is ten moves ahead of the opponent. He anticipates the question. Why buy the land – including all the paperwork that goes with it and put that paperwork in a jar? The answer is short. In English, it’s only twelve words. Yahweh says: “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” My friends, the earthenware jar is a sign of God’s faithfulness which always calls upon people to trust. In this story, it is faithfulness in a jar. In other words, it is God saying: “We have a problem; we’re not going to deny it. We’re going to be in this problem, walk through this problem together, and come out on the other side of this problem safe and sound. Look at the jar. You have the sign. You have my word on it.”
It wasn’t the first sign that God gave, and it wouldn’t be the last. The best and greatest sign God gave came later, and it didn’t come in a jar. It came in the form of a human being – a human being like you and like me. This human being is Jesus Christ, the incarnate son of the living God. He lived a perfect life, a sinless life, a holy life – not to prove a point, but to give that life as a gift to us. He Himself faced a huge problem – in fact, the most gargantuan problem the world has ever known. He didn’t deny it; He acknowledged it. He didn’t try to get around it; He endured it. He didn’t blink; He stared it down. The problem was the debt of our sin and the hellish interest rates that are attached it. In that death on that cross, the debt – like those papers in the jar – was marked “Paid in full.” And the resurrection of Jesus trumpets the truth that He made it – not away from, not around, but -- through the problem safe and sound. Why? It is because God is faithful; it is because God loves you; it is because God wants you in on the party. The God we belong to is grand! Amen.
THE STRAIGHTFORWARD PULPIT
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Checking In with Headquarters
Text: 1 Timothy 2:1-7
Theme: “Checking In with Headquarters”
The 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The 17th Sunday after Pentecost
September 19, 2010
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
The Rev. Paul R. Dunklau
+In the Name of Jesus+
In the northeast corner of the state of Illinois, close to the Wisconsin border, sits a lovely community of between twenty five and thirty thousand folks, which is Zion, Illinois. The name Zion is right out of the pages of the Bible. One wonders if the citizens are called Zionists – which is another interesting term.
I mention Zion, Illinois because a fascinating story emerges from the town. In 1987, city leaders found themselves in a bit of a kerfuffle. (I love that word, kerfuffle.) As it turns out, the Illinois chapter of an organization called American Atheists filed a lawsuit against the city of Zion. They cited that the seal of the city – which contained a cross, a dove, and the phrase “God Reigns” – was unconstitutional. Five years later, this kerfuffle made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court which upheld a lower court decision that the city seal violated the principle of separation of church and state and that the Christian symbolism must be removed. Following the court order, the city obeyed. Shortly thereafter, they unveiled their new motto which read “In God We Trust.”
“In God We Trust”, of course, is on our currency, and the phrase itself has an interesting history of its own. It was first legally challenged in 1970 and 1978 when the atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair argued that the phrase violated the first amendment. The high court, on this matter, sided against Ms. O’Hair. In doing so, in preserving the status of “In God We Trust’, they quoted the words of Justice William Brennan from a previous ruling. Here’s what the justice said: “The truth is that we have simply interwoven the motto so deeply into the fabric of our civil policy that its present use may well not present that type of involvement which the First Amendment prohibits.” Let me try to put that in layman’s terms: we’ve used the motto so frequently that it has lost any significant religious content. The court allows it because we’ve used it so much that it doesn’t mean anything anymore.
The courts have their rulings and so, apparently, do the clergy. A number of years ago, my father – who is with us here this morning – told me about a Lutheran Church he’d been attending in California. He had noticed that the church rarely used the Lord’s Prayer in its worship. When he talked to the pastor about that, he was told that if it was used all the time it would lose meaning. In other words, it will mean more if you don’t pray it as often. But when, I ask, did the use of the Lord’s Prayer depend on the meaning we attach to it? The disciples of Jesus once came up to him with a request: “Lord, teach us to pray.” The disciples wanted to have a teachable moment. Hip, hip, hooray for the disciples on that occasion! In reply, Jesus didn’t say “I’m busy, so remind me to get back to you on that.” He didn’t say “Here’s a prayer, but don’t use it very often since it might lose its meaning.” Neither did he hand out a course syllabus on “Prayer 101.” There was no “how to” book called “The Prayer-Driven Life”, or something like that. Instead, Jesus said, “When you pray, say “Our Father, who art in heaven… .”
The subject of prayer is before us this morning – both in our reading and from this pulpit. When that subject comes up on a personal level, I often feel like bowing my head with more than a smidge of shame. When I was in grade school, I’d get a report card. It would have the usual grades – A, B, C and so on. But on some areas, the card would also have the abbreviation “N.I.” listed; N.I. stands for “Needs Improvement.” There needs to be an “N.I.” next to my prayer life!
But hold on a second! Isn’t it like us – all of us – to grade things? We’re quick to put forth our two cents worth, offer up our rulings, our assessments, our opinions about something (in this case, prayer) before we really know that something is.
What is prayer? It’s conversation with God – with heart, mind, soul, even body, with voice, in song, and even in silence. Prayer is a gift! There are laws and rules and regulations and responsibilities and duties and all of that. But then there are gifts. That sounds better, doesn’t it? It sounds like the Gospel; it’s all gift!
As hard to believe as it still is for me, I’m going to be ordained this afternoon. There were days when I thought this day would never come, but now it’s here. I’m convinced it has come on the wings of prayer – your prayers and those of many others. One of the questions, this afternoon, that is required to be asked and answered is this: “Will you seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love?” Did you notice how the word imagination got thrown in there? Cool. I decided to apply a bit of imagination to prayer, and I’ve come up with a name for it. I claim no copyright. You can use it at will or use something else if you’d like. But I’d like to call prayer “Checking in with Headquarters!” In the morning as you get up, check in with headquarters. When you sit down to eat, check in with headquarters. When you turn off the lights and go to bed, check in with headquarters. It doesn’t have to be long or drawn out, but check in with headquarters. When life delivers bad news as it most assuredly will (even on a daily basis), check in with headquarters. Just this past week, a good friend of mine was talking about what a friend of his once said. This individual said: “I’ve experienced every pleasure the world has to offer, but I don’t think I’ve ever been truly happy.” When I heard that, I thought that maybe checking in with headquarters would help.
When you are, as C.S. Lewis once observed, “surprised by joy”, check in with headquarters. No text, no email, no priority, express, or snail mail is needed. You have a direct connection. You don’t have to go through a priest, a pastor, a saint, or anyone or anything else. There’s nothing blocking the line to headquarters! Jesus Christ – whom our reading calls the mediator between God and humankind -- has made that possible for us all.
If we’re on the line with headquarters, that means that we must be here on earth engaged with some kind of mission. Our lives – whether young or old or healthy or infirm – have a purpose, or an end, as the Westminster Catechism puts it. What is the chief end of humanity? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
All of us have people that we especially enjoy being around. We sing their praises. We converse with them, we chat with them; we can let it all hang out with them. We find that we can be ourselves with them.
In a little over a month, the church will observe Reformation Sunday. We’ll stop and take note of historical figures such as Martin Luther and John Calvin and others who helped to get the church back to the basics. Speaking of Martin Luther, there was a point in his life when he was in exile and on the run. The authorities were chasing him. He’d caused quite a ruckus. His supporters assisted him in hiding. He was in a castle. He was in his own private room on the second floor of his castle. One day, a supporter of Luther’s walked down the hallway and overheard a conversation Luther was having behind the closed door of his room. This supporter was shocked because he knew that only Luther was in the room. Had the reformer gone mad? He tip-toed down to the door and continued to listen. Indeed, Luther was talking – in a tone most conversational. He was talking to God as if God were right there in the room with him. Headquarters was right there with him. Jesus says: “Lo, I am with you always – even to the end of the age.”
Let me switch gears and offer a couple of suggestions on prayer that I’ve picked up through the years. I believe that the more you know the more you know what you don’t know. But what you do know, you share. So, again, here are a couple of suggestions. If you’ve ever wondered what to think or say with your mind, voice, or heart in prayer, these might help. First, take the word “Pray” itself – P.R.A.Y. The “P” stands for praise. I once heard the story of a young adult who became a follower of Christ and was new to the whole subject of prayer. When asked what his first words of prayer to God were, he said, simply: “I thanked God that He is God.”
The “R” stands for remember. We remember, for example, that we have fallen short of the glory of God. We also remember that we are forgiven. God so loved the world that He gave His Son for that very purpose – that we be forgiven.
The “A” stands for ask. “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door will be opened unto you,” says Jesus Christ.
And finally the “Y” stands for yield. In this case, it means yield to God’s will. Remember how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before He was crucified. He asked that the “cup” be taken from Him. But he concluded the prayer by saying, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” He yielded His will to that of His Father in heaven.
Here’s a second suggestion. Hold out your hand like this. (Demonstrate) Which finger is closest? That’s right, your thumb! Pray for those who are closest to you – your spouse, your immediate family, extended family, and friends. The second finger is your index or forefinger. It has been called the pointing finger. Pray for those who have pointed you in the right direction in life. It could be anyone – a teacher, a mentor and so forth. The next finger is the tallest finger in the hand. It can represent authority. You pray for those who are in authority. In the earliest days of Christianity, the church was literally under attack by the ruling authorities. Some of the Caesars would murder Christians for sport. Still, the church prayed for them. The next finger is the ring finger, the weakest in the hand. You pray for those who are weak, for those less fortunate, for the poor, the sick, and those hurled around by the assaults of life. And finally, consider the smallest finger on the hand and then pray for yourself.
Not long ago, I came across a sign with an American flag on it. It said: “Prayer is Our Only Hope.” If that is true, then we’re in worse trouble than any one of us thinks! Prayer is NOT our only hope. The One who answers our prayers is. It is as the great hymn says: “Our God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.”
But still, the Apostle Paul didn’t mince words when he wrote to young Pastor Timothy: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”
That’s a mouthful, my friends. Paul is insisting that his young friend check in with headquarters. And notice: the prayers are non-discriminatory; no one is left out. Prayer for everyone is urged upon us.
There’s funny little story about a farmer who invited his brother and wife to join him and his wife for Sunday dinner. They bowed their heads, and the farmer said the prayer: “God bless me and my wife, my brother John and his wife. Us four and no more.”
Obviously, the farmer didn’t get the gist of our reading: we pray for everyone– even, and maybe even especially, for those who anger us and engender resentments! There’s a reason for this too. St. Paul says we pray so that “we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” Have you noticed how “noisy” the world is? Have you observed how contentious the world is? If I read it correctly, when we check in with headquarters we are urged to ask for some peace and quiet.
But it is not just peace and quiet. Peace and quiet should go with godliness and dignity, says the text. When put together, these words – from the original – convey this idea of reverence for God and respect for all of humanity.
So there you go! We want to honor God, respect our fellow human beings, and live with some peace and quiet! Checking in with headquarters like this, is, we are told, “right and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
What is that truth? Here again, our text does not disappoint and chimes right in: “There is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all… .”
That message is why St. Paul was appointed an apostle. That’s why this Paul will be ordained this afternoon – so that this message can get out. It’s the message that the blood was shed, the price was paid, the forgiveness given, and the love God is real; it’s here right now, and it’s for you. That’s the gospel in two words, by the way: for you.
With a message about prayer, about checking in with headquarters, it’s appropriate to close with one. It’s a bed time prayer that I learned as a child, and it’s the verse of a Christmas carol. It captures pretty much everything I’ve tried to say today, and I’m sure you’ve heard it before. It’s the last verse of “Away in A Manger”. Pray it along with me if you’d like:
Be near me, Lord Jesus.
I ask Thee to stay –
Close by me forever
And love me, I pray.
Bless all the dear children
In Thy tender care,
And take us to heaven to live with Thee there.
Amen.
Theme: “Checking In with Headquarters”
The 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The 17th Sunday after Pentecost
September 19, 2010
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
The Rev. Paul R. Dunklau
+In the Name of Jesus+
In the northeast corner of the state of Illinois, close to the Wisconsin border, sits a lovely community of between twenty five and thirty thousand folks, which is Zion, Illinois. The name Zion is right out of the pages of the Bible. One wonders if the citizens are called Zionists – which is another interesting term.
I mention Zion, Illinois because a fascinating story emerges from the town. In 1987, city leaders found themselves in a bit of a kerfuffle. (I love that word, kerfuffle.) As it turns out, the Illinois chapter of an organization called American Atheists filed a lawsuit against the city of Zion. They cited that the seal of the city – which contained a cross, a dove, and the phrase “God Reigns” – was unconstitutional. Five years later, this kerfuffle made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court which upheld a lower court decision that the city seal violated the principle of separation of church and state and that the Christian symbolism must be removed. Following the court order, the city obeyed. Shortly thereafter, they unveiled their new motto which read “In God We Trust.”
“In God We Trust”, of course, is on our currency, and the phrase itself has an interesting history of its own. It was first legally challenged in 1970 and 1978 when the atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair argued that the phrase violated the first amendment. The high court, on this matter, sided against Ms. O’Hair. In doing so, in preserving the status of “In God We Trust’, they quoted the words of Justice William Brennan from a previous ruling. Here’s what the justice said: “The truth is that we have simply interwoven the motto so deeply into the fabric of our civil policy that its present use may well not present that type of involvement which the First Amendment prohibits.” Let me try to put that in layman’s terms: we’ve used the motto so frequently that it has lost any significant religious content. The court allows it because we’ve used it so much that it doesn’t mean anything anymore.
The courts have their rulings and so, apparently, do the clergy. A number of years ago, my father – who is with us here this morning – told me about a Lutheran Church he’d been attending in California. He had noticed that the church rarely used the Lord’s Prayer in its worship. When he talked to the pastor about that, he was told that if it was used all the time it would lose meaning. In other words, it will mean more if you don’t pray it as often. But when, I ask, did the use of the Lord’s Prayer depend on the meaning we attach to it? The disciples of Jesus once came up to him with a request: “Lord, teach us to pray.” The disciples wanted to have a teachable moment. Hip, hip, hooray for the disciples on that occasion! In reply, Jesus didn’t say “I’m busy, so remind me to get back to you on that.” He didn’t say “Here’s a prayer, but don’t use it very often since it might lose its meaning.” Neither did he hand out a course syllabus on “Prayer 101.” There was no “how to” book called “The Prayer-Driven Life”, or something like that. Instead, Jesus said, “When you pray, say “Our Father, who art in heaven… .”
The subject of prayer is before us this morning – both in our reading and from this pulpit. When that subject comes up on a personal level, I often feel like bowing my head with more than a smidge of shame. When I was in grade school, I’d get a report card. It would have the usual grades – A, B, C and so on. But on some areas, the card would also have the abbreviation “N.I.” listed; N.I. stands for “Needs Improvement.” There needs to be an “N.I.” next to my prayer life!
But hold on a second! Isn’t it like us – all of us – to grade things? We’re quick to put forth our two cents worth, offer up our rulings, our assessments, our opinions about something (in this case, prayer) before we really know that something is.
What is prayer? It’s conversation with God – with heart, mind, soul, even body, with voice, in song, and even in silence. Prayer is a gift! There are laws and rules and regulations and responsibilities and duties and all of that. But then there are gifts. That sounds better, doesn’t it? It sounds like the Gospel; it’s all gift!
As hard to believe as it still is for me, I’m going to be ordained this afternoon. There were days when I thought this day would never come, but now it’s here. I’m convinced it has come on the wings of prayer – your prayers and those of many others. One of the questions, this afternoon, that is required to be asked and answered is this: “Will you seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love?” Did you notice how the word imagination got thrown in there? Cool. I decided to apply a bit of imagination to prayer, and I’ve come up with a name for it. I claim no copyright. You can use it at will or use something else if you’d like. But I’d like to call prayer “Checking in with Headquarters!” In the morning as you get up, check in with headquarters. When you sit down to eat, check in with headquarters. When you turn off the lights and go to bed, check in with headquarters. It doesn’t have to be long or drawn out, but check in with headquarters. When life delivers bad news as it most assuredly will (even on a daily basis), check in with headquarters. Just this past week, a good friend of mine was talking about what a friend of his once said. This individual said: “I’ve experienced every pleasure the world has to offer, but I don’t think I’ve ever been truly happy.” When I heard that, I thought that maybe checking in with headquarters would help.
When you are, as C.S. Lewis once observed, “surprised by joy”, check in with headquarters. No text, no email, no priority, express, or snail mail is needed. You have a direct connection. You don’t have to go through a priest, a pastor, a saint, or anyone or anything else. There’s nothing blocking the line to headquarters! Jesus Christ – whom our reading calls the mediator between God and humankind -- has made that possible for us all.
If we’re on the line with headquarters, that means that we must be here on earth engaged with some kind of mission. Our lives – whether young or old or healthy or infirm – have a purpose, or an end, as the Westminster Catechism puts it. What is the chief end of humanity? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
All of us have people that we especially enjoy being around. We sing their praises. We converse with them, we chat with them; we can let it all hang out with them. We find that we can be ourselves with them.
In a little over a month, the church will observe Reformation Sunday. We’ll stop and take note of historical figures such as Martin Luther and John Calvin and others who helped to get the church back to the basics. Speaking of Martin Luther, there was a point in his life when he was in exile and on the run. The authorities were chasing him. He’d caused quite a ruckus. His supporters assisted him in hiding. He was in a castle. He was in his own private room on the second floor of his castle. One day, a supporter of Luther’s walked down the hallway and overheard a conversation Luther was having behind the closed door of his room. This supporter was shocked because he knew that only Luther was in the room. Had the reformer gone mad? He tip-toed down to the door and continued to listen. Indeed, Luther was talking – in a tone most conversational. He was talking to God as if God were right there in the room with him. Headquarters was right there with him. Jesus says: “Lo, I am with you always – even to the end of the age.”
Let me switch gears and offer a couple of suggestions on prayer that I’ve picked up through the years. I believe that the more you know the more you know what you don’t know. But what you do know, you share. So, again, here are a couple of suggestions. If you’ve ever wondered what to think or say with your mind, voice, or heart in prayer, these might help. First, take the word “Pray” itself – P.R.A.Y. The “P” stands for praise. I once heard the story of a young adult who became a follower of Christ and was new to the whole subject of prayer. When asked what his first words of prayer to God were, he said, simply: “I thanked God that He is God.”
The “R” stands for remember. We remember, for example, that we have fallen short of the glory of God. We also remember that we are forgiven. God so loved the world that He gave His Son for that very purpose – that we be forgiven.
The “A” stands for ask. “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door will be opened unto you,” says Jesus Christ.
And finally the “Y” stands for yield. In this case, it means yield to God’s will. Remember how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before He was crucified. He asked that the “cup” be taken from Him. But he concluded the prayer by saying, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” He yielded His will to that of His Father in heaven.
Here’s a second suggestion. Hold out your hand like this. (Demonstrate) Which finger is closest? That’s right, your thumb! Pray for those who are closest to you – your spouse, your immediate family, extended family, and friends. The second finger is your index or forefinger. It has been called the pointing finger. Pray for those who have pointed you in the right direction in life. It could be anyone – a teacher, a mentor and so forth. The next finger is the tallest finger in the hand. It can represent authority. You pray for those who are in authority. In the earliest days of Christianity, the church was literally under attack by the ruling authorities. Some of the Caesars would murder Christians for sport. Still, the church prayed for them. The next finger is the ring finger, the weakest in the hand. You pray for those who are weak, for those less fortunate, for the poor, the sick, and those hurled around by the assaults of life. And finally, consider the smallest finger on the hand and then pray for yourself.
Not long ago, I came across a sign with an American flag on it. It said: “Prayer is Our Only Hope.” If that is true, then we’re in worse trouble than any one of us thinks! Prayer is NOT our only hope. The One who answers our prayers is. It is as the great hymn says: “Our God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.”
But still, the Apostle Paul didn’t mince words when he wrote to young Pastor Timothy: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”
That’s a mouthful, my friends. Paul is insisting that his young friend check in with headquarters. And notice: the prayers are non-discriminatory; no one is left out. Prayer for everyone is urged upon us.
There’s funny little story about a farmer who invited his brother and wife to join him and his wife for Sunday dinner. They bowed their heads, and the farmer said the prayer: “God bless me and my wife, my brother John and his wife. Us four and no more.”
Obviously, the farmer didn’t get the gist of our reading: we pray for everyone– even, and maybe even especially, for those who anger us and engender resentments! There’s a reason for this too. St. Paul says we pray so that “we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” Have you noticed how “noisy” the world is? Have you observed how contentious the world is? If I read it correctly, when we check in with headquarters we are urged to ask for some peace and quiet.
But it is not just peace and quiet. Peace and quiet should go with godliness and dignity, says the text. When put together, these words – from the original – convey this idea of reverence for God and respect for all of humanity.
So there you go! We want to honor God, respect our fellow human beings, and live with some peace and quiet! Checking in with headquarters like this, is, we are told, “right and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
What is that truth? Here again, our text does not disappoint and chimes right in: “There is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all… .”
That message is why St. Paul was appointed an apostle. That’s why this Paul will be ordained this afternoon – so that this message can get out. It’s the message that the blood was shed, the price was paid, the forgiveness given, and the love God is real; it’s here right now, and it’s for you. That’s the gospel in two words, by the way: for you.
With a message about prayer, about checking in with headquarters, it’s appropriate to close with one. It’s a bed time prayer that I learned as a child, and it’s the verse of a Christmas carol. It captures pretty much everything I’ve tried to say today, and I’m sure you’ve heard it before. It’s the last verse of “Away in A Manger”. Pray it along with me if you’d like:
Be near me, Lord Jesus.
I ask Thee to stay –
Close by me forever
And love me, I pray.
Bless all the dear children
In Thy tender care,
And take us to heaven to live with Thee there.
Amen.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Just One
Text: Luke 15:1-10
Theme: “Just One”
The Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 12, 2010
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
The Rev. Paul R. Dunklau
+In the Name of Jesus+
Right smack dab in front of us this morning are the first ten verses of one of the great chapters of the Bible. It’s Luke fifteen, and it offers up three little stories Jesus Christ told to a smattering of people. I suppose you could call a smattering a group of people. But actually, there were two groups that comprised this smattering of folks that listened to Lord Jesus on that day. As far as the little stories are concerned (scholars call them parables), we get two out of the three this morning in Luke fifteen: the story of the lost sheep and the story of the lost coin. The shepherd didn’t lose two sheep; he lost just one. The woman didn’t lose two coins; she lost just one. The verse which follows our text, verse 11, gives us, arguably, the most famous of the Jesus stories: the story of the prodigal son. But that’s for another day.
I mentioned groups. Groups, I think you would agree, are so common-place that we rarely take notice. Or, if we do, we simply take them for granted as part of the warp and woof of life. Social propriety all but insists that we be part of one group or another. One group we didn’t join; we had no choice for we were born into it. I speak of that group we call the family. We find ourselves in other groups because we, like the others, signed up; we share a common interest with other peeps in the group. I use the word “group” as an all-encompassing term this morning. Sometimes we call groups clubs or leagues or fellowships or organizations and so forth. Here in the Presbyterian Church we call them committees. Someone once remarked that a camel is nothing but a horse put together by a committee.
One big group, a group we call the presbytery, met yesterday not far from beautiful downtown Tyler, Texas. I noted that there were smaller groups within that larger group of the presbytery. There was, for example, the Examinations Committee. At one point, they had me come up and share a few words and answer a few questions before the larger group. Then, the larger group voted to include me in their group. I’m part of that groupof ministers of Word and Sacrament officially now, because this group here extended the call!
Group, groups, and more groups! Does the world need more groups? You make the call. Maybe you’ll become part of a group – or, in our case, a committee – to decide that!
Well, we can sit back and relax this morning because we only need to think about two groups – the ones we’ve got in our reading. The first verse says “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.” There’s your first group which is actually a combination of two groups. You have the tax collectors who, to put it mildly, were not exactly the most well-liked folks in Jesus’ day. Just as an aside, I have a good friend who works for the IRS. I asked him once, “When people ask what you do for a living, do you tell them?” He said, “Yep.” “Do you want to do that?” I countered. He said, “Nope.” Well, many of these tax collectors were Jewish people, but they were in cahoots with another group called the Roman government. Their Jewish kinsfolk thought that these tax collectors had sold out to the enemy. In a way, they were like non-violent mobsters who overcharged their subjects and then lined their pockets with the ill-gotten gains. They were often wealthy individuals who lived “large.”
Then you have the group that’s called the “sinners.” Someone says, “Well, we’re all sinners,” and that’s true. But what does the Bible mean when it says “sinners” in the context of this story? One commentary says this: “(Sinners were) notoriously evil people as well as those who either refused or lacked the time to follow the Mosaic law as interpreted by the teachers of the law. The term was commonly used of tax collectors, adulterers, robbers and the like.” A good Jews of Jesus’ day would look at this group – the “sinners” – as the riff-raff, the shady characters, the dregs of society. I’d go so far as to say the “sinners” were considered human debris; if you were even close to them, you got dirty – certainly morally and maybe even physically. They were called, back then, the “am ha eretz” which literally means the “people of the earth.”
Now enters the second group. Verse two says that “…Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” So we have a grumbling group of Pharisees and scribes. They were part of a larger group known at the time as the “haberim.” It was a religious club that sought to learn and practice the traditions, rules, and regulations that allowed you to be a Jewish person in good standing.
Here’s where things get really interesting. There was no love lost between this religious group and the tax collectors and sinners group. The harberim (the religious club) hated the la ha eretz (the people of the earth.) How intense was this hostility? There’s an ancient book called “The Babylonian Talmud” that records this – about what the religious club felt about the people of the earth: “Our Rabbis taught: Let a man always sell all he has and marry the daughter of a scholar….but let him not marry the daughter of an am ha eretz, because they are detestable.” One Rabbi, a certain Eleazar, said: An am har-arez (a person of the earth), it is permitted to stab him (even) on the Day of Atonement which falls on the Sabbath… .”
Now, there’s a flipside to this hostility. The am ha eretz, the people of the land, didn’t exactly like the haberim, the religious club, either. Another Rabbi by the name of Akiba said: “When I was an am ha-arez I said ‘I would that I had a scholar (before me), and I would maul him like an ass…. .”In any case, we get the idea that civility between these two groups was a rare commodity. Right smack dab in the middle of them both was Jesus Christ. Would he be a mediator?
A better question is this: was Jesus haberim or ha eretz? Was he part of the religious group or the people of the land group? Good questions, but meanwhile the religious group was grumbling. Another translation says they were “murmuring” amongst themselves. “They said, of Jesus, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Welcoming a sinner was one thing. Welcoming sinners – en masse -- was worse. But going out and having dinner with them was unimaginably bad. When the religious group saw that, they would have concluded: “This Rabbi, Jesus, who is supposed to be one of us, is aligning himself with the riff-raff. He’s eating with them. He’s ritually unclean. He’s dirty. He’s acting like he’s a member of that group. Horror of horrors! Maybe he IS a member of that group!” A number of years ago, a pop singer by the name of Joane Osborne sang: “What if God were one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus trying to find His way home?”
Jesus, as is His way, told a story to the religious group: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
There is a way to look at this story of the lost sheep economically. Back in the last six months of 2008, the stock portfolio of many people took a huge hit. Some folks lost nearly 40% of their market value. Alongside Jesus’ story, the sheep owner who had one hundred sheep, only lost one 1%. Hey, that happens every day. You win some; you lose some. You play the market, you’ll gain it back eventually; everything’s cyclical. No use crying over spilled milk. Make sure you take care of what you’ve got. Forget about losing 1%; there’s no big deal about losing one little lamb. That happens every day.
In Jesus’ day, the shepherds were at the bottom rung of the economic totem pole. If one of a hundred sheep were lost, it would have been risky business to leave the ninety nine behind and go running after just one. Not only did you have the riff-raff, dirty job of a shepherd which was bad enough, you also didn’t have smarts. You left the other ninety nine to fend for themselves. Some would call that a needless, idiotic risk.
Lets say you found that lost sheep. You’d be excited as all get-out. But would you call your friends and neighbors to celebrate with you? That would be an admission that you were, indeed, not the brightest star in the sky or the sharpest knife in the drawer. For one thing, you lost a sheep. That’s bad. But secondly, you left the others to fend for themselves. That’s worse. Rejoice over that? For crying out loud, I’d be embarrassed.
All of these thoughts, in so many words, had to have been going through the minds of the haberim, the religious club, as Jesus told the story. Then, in what had to be the rhetorical equivalent of a bomb going off, Jesus gets to the point of the story: “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
Stated differently: “Listen, harberim group. There will be more joy in heaven over just one member of the ha eretz group who repents, than ninety-nine of you haberim who act as though you never need to repent.” Oh, the haberim the got the message.
But Jesus, who likens himself to the dirty dumb shepherd who lost the dirty dumb sheep, isn’t finished yet. He has another story. He goes on to liken himself to an absent-minded woman. “Or what woman,” He says, “…having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”
Okay, you have ten coins, or, drachmas – as the Greek says. Ten drachmas was essentially a two-week paycheck for a middle-to-upper class family in Jesus’ time. Furthermore, it says the woman had the money. It almost sounds like an allowance from the husband. All told, it appears they were more upper than middle class. Once more, lets look at the economics from our point of view. Take a one hundred thousand dollar a year salary – after taxes. That means, in American dollars, that your two week pay is four thousand one hundred sixteen dollars – again, after taxes and FICA and all of that are taken out. Now, the woman lost one coin of the ten. That’s 10%. 10% of $4166 is $416.00. That, for some of you might amount to a car payment. For some of you, that’s a lot of money. Others might say, “Ouch. Losing that hurts a little, but we’ll manage.”
Speaking of cars, for you drivers out there, how many of you have lost – or misplaced – your car keys? If you did and found them, I bet there was one of two reactions. First, you were upset at yourself because your keys are right there where you put them and you just forgot to look there! Second, once you found them, you breathed a huge sigh of relief and had a short blast of euphoria.
Now, the woman in the story didn’t lose car keys obviously. But she did lose the one drachma, the one coin, or, in our terms, the four hundred sixteen bucks. Here’s an interesting side note. Back then they didn’t have hardwood floors or Berber carpeting. They were dirt floors; they were dusty floors. That accounts for the fact that she swept the house -- literally swept the dirt on the ground -- for this one coin little coin. So she was somewhat absent-minded for losing it. Then she comes off kind of manic in her attempts to find it.
So we have a sheep, a lost sheep, just one sheep in story number one. Similarly, we have a coin, a lost coin, just one coin in story number two. But a sheep, if lost, might possibly find its way back. It could get up, look around, listen for the voice of the shepherd one would think. But a guy by the name of Ken Bailey thinks differently. He wrote a book on these stories, and he makes an interesting point about a lost sheep. He writes:
My shepherd friends of Lebanon and Palestine tell me that a sheep once lost is terrified. It sits down, usually in as sheltered a place as is immediately available and starts shaking and bleating. When found it is in such a state of nervous collapse that it cannot stand or be made to stand. It cannot walk or be led, nor will it respond to the shepherd’s well-known call. If it is to be restored to the fold the shepherd must carry it on his two shoulders
Unlike the lost sheep, the lost coin is an inanimate object. It can’t shake and bleat; it can’t collapse or stand; it cannot walk or be led. It still has economic value, but it’s dead; it’s lifeless. It can only be found.
I started talking about groups this morning. When I look out from the FPC pulpit here, I see a group of people of which I’m a part too. Compared to today’s stories from Jesus, which group are we more like? Are we like the haberim – proud of our religion or our Presbyterianism or our church-going or our cherished points of view be they more liberal, more moderate, or more conservative? Or are we more like the ha eretz -- people who have tried to live up to a standard but have fallen short again and again; or folks who are only too aware of what their lives are and what they are not before a holy God; or people who are lost and hope to be found and just want to fit in; or folks that don’t even know they’re lost but are, and, once found, are going to know a joy like nothing else?
But forget about those groups now and think of this. What if there were just one of you today who feels lost; who feels dead to God, dead to the world, dead to others; who is beaten down by what their lives have become; who questions the use of everything; who feels less than zero?
Assuming there is one (and I believe there is), all I ask of you is this: consider the value a dirty, dumb shepherd placed on just one lost sheep. He went out – to heck with the risk! – and brought that sheep home. Then he throws a party. Consider the value an absent-minded, manic woman placed on just one lost coin. She lit a lamp, swept the floor, stopped at nothing until she found it. Then she throws a party. That’s not group dynamics. That’s the value of just one. That’s the value God places on you – the God who did not spare His own Son, but gave him for us all.
The haberim murmured and grumbled at Jesus that day. They said, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” One translation says, “This man is a friend of sinners and eats with them.”Isn’t it ironic that one of the most beautiful names for Jesus came first from the lips of His enemies!
His name was Henry Francis Lyte. He was just one man. He died in his early 50s from tuberculosis. When he was a growing boy, his father abandoned the family, left him and placed him in a Northern Ireland boarding school, and never saw him again. His mother and younger sister moved to London where they both died very young. As I said, in the end, he was just one man.
Later in life, and exactly two weeks before he died, he wrote a little prayer that has become a classic in our treasury of hymns. Perhaps he was thinking of the family he had lost, as the life was slipping out of him, when he prayed to God:
Abide with me! Fast falls he even-tide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!
Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings;
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea.
Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me.
What more is there to say – for that one man and for us all -- but Amen!
Theme: “Just One”
The Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 12, 2010
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
The Rev. Paul R. Dunklau
+In the Name of Jesus+
Right smack dab in front of us this morning are the first ten verses of one of the great chapters of the Bible. It’s Luke fifteen, and it offers up three little stories Jesus Christ told to a smattering of people. I suppose you could call a smattering a group of people. But actually, there were two groups that comprised this smattering of folks that listened to Lord Jesus on that day. As far as the little stories are concerned (scholars call them parables), we get two out of the three this morning in Luke fifteen: the story of the lost sheep and the story of the lost coin. The shepherd didn’t lose two sheep; he lost just one. The woman didn’t lose two coins; she lost just one. The verse which follows our text, verse 11, gives us, arguably, the most famous of the Jesus stories: the story of the prodigal son. But that’s for another day.
I mentioned groups. Groups, I think you would agree, are so common-place that we rarely take notice. Or, if we do, we simply take them for granted as part of the warp and woof of life. Social propriety all but insists that we be part of one group or another. One group we didn’t join; we had no choice for we were born into it. I speak of that group we call the family. We find ourselves in other groups because we, like the others, signed up; we share a common interest with other peeps in the group. I use the word “group” as an all-encompassing term this morning. Sometimes we call groups clubs or leagues or fellowships or organizations and so forth. Here in the Presbyterian Church we call them committees. Someone once remarked that a camel is nothing but a horse put together by a committee.
One big group, a group we call the presbytery, met yesterday not far from beautiful downtown Tyler, Texas. I noted that there were smaller groups within that larger group of the presbytery. There was, for example, the Examinations Committee. At one point, they had me come up and share a few words and answer a few questions before the larger group. Then, the larger group voted to include me in their group. I’m part of that groupof ministers of Word and Sacrament officially now, because this group here extended the call!
Group, groups, and more groups! Does the world need more groups? You make the call. Maybe you’ll become part of a group – or, in our case, a committee – to decide that!
Well, we can sit back and relax this morning because we only need to think about two groups – the ones we’ve got in our reading. The first verse says “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.” There’s your first group which is actually a combination of two groups. You have the tax collectors who, to put it mildly, were not exactly the most well-liked folks in Jesus’ day. Just as an aside, I have a good friend who works for the IRS. I asked him once, “When people ask what you do for a living, do you tell them?” He said, “Yep.” “Do you want to do that?” I countered. He said, “Nope.” Well, many of these tax collectors were Jewish people, but they were in cahoots with another group called the Roman government. Their Jewish kinsfolk thought that these tax collectors had sold out to the enemy. In a way, they were like non-violent mobsters who overcharged their subjects and then lined their pockets with the ill-gotten gains. They were often wealthy individuals who lived “large.”
Then you have the group that’s called the “sinners.” Someone says, “Well, we’re all sinners,” and that’s true. But what does the Bible mean when it says “sinners” in the context of this story? One commentary says this: “(Sinners were) notoriously evil people as well as those who either refused or lacked the time to follow the Mosaic law as interpreted by the teachers of the law. The term was commonly used of tax collectors, adulterers, robbers and the like.” A good Jews of Jesus’ day would look at this group – the “sinners” – as the riff-raff, the shady characters, the dregs of society. I’d go so far as to say the “sinners” were considered human debris; if you were even close to them, you got dirty – certainly morally and maybe even physically. They were called, back then, the “am ha eretz” which literally means the “people of the earth.”
Now enters the second group. Verse two says that “…Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” So we have a grumbling group of Pharisees and scribes. They were part of a larger group known at the time as the “haberim.” It was a religious club that sought to learn and practice the traditions, rules, and regulations that allowed you to be a Jewish person in good standing.
Here’s where things get really interesting. There was no love lost between this religious group and the tax collectors and sinners group. The harberim (the religious club) hated the la ha eretz (the people of the earth.) How intense was this hostility? There’s an ancient book called “The Babylonian Talmud” that records this – about what the religious club felt about the people of the earth: “Our Rabbis taught: Let a man always sell all he has and marry the daughter of a scholar….but let him not marry the daughter of an am ha eretz, because they are detestable.” One Rabbi, a certain Eleazar, said: An am har-arez (a person of the earth), it is permitted to stab him (even) on the Day of Atonement which falls on the Sabbath… .”
Now, there’s a flipside to this hostility. The am ha eretz, the people of the land, didn’t exactly like the haberim, the religious club, either. Another Rabbi by the name of Akiba said: “When I was an am ha-arez I said ‘I would that I had a scholar (before me), and I would maul him like an ass…. .”In any case, we get the idea that civility between these two groups was a rare commodity. Right smack dab in the middle of them both was Jesus Christ. Would he be a mediator?
A better question is this: was Jesus haberim or ha eretz? Was he part of the religious group or the people of the land group? Good questions, but meanwhile the religious group was grumbling. Another translation says they were “murmuring” amongst themselves. “They said, of Jesus, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Welcoming a sinner was one thing. Welcoming sinners – en masse -- was worse. But going out and having dinner with them was unimaginably bad. When the religious group saw that, they would have concluded: “This Rabbi, Jesus, who is supposed to be one of us, is aligning himself with the riff-raff. He’s eating with them. He’s ritually unclean. He’s dirty. He’s acting like he’s a member of that group. Horror of horrors! Maybe he IS a member of that group!” A number of years ago, a pop singer by the name of Joane Osborne sang: “What if God were one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus trying to find His way home?”
Jesus, as is His way, told a story to the religious group: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
There is a way to look at this story of the lost sheep economically. Back in the last six months of 2008, the stock portfolio of many people took a huge hit. Some folks lost nearly 40% of their market value. Alongside Jesus’ story, the sheep owner who had one hundred sheep, only lost one 1%. Hey, that happens every day. You win some; you lose some. You play the market, you’ll gain it back eventually; everything’s cyclical. No use crying over spilled milk. Make sure you take care of what you’ve got. Forget about losing 1%; there’s no big deal about losing one little lamb. That happens every day.
In Jesus’ day, the shepherds were at the bottom rung of the economic totem pole. If one of a hundred sheep were lost, it would have been risky business to leave the ninety nine behind and go running after just one. Not only did you have the riff-raff, dirty job of a shepherd which was bad enough, you also didn’t have smarts. You left the other ninety nine to fend for themselves. Some would call that a needless, idiotic risk.
Lets say you found that lost sheep. You’d be excited as all get-out. But would you call your friends and neighbors to celebrate with you? That would be an admission that you were, indeed, not the brightest star in the sky or the sharpest knife in the drawer. For one thing, you lost a sheep. That’s bad. But secondly, you left the others to fend for themselves. That’s worse. Rejoice over that? For crying out loud, I’d be embarrassed.
All of these thoughts, in so many words, had to have been going through the minds of the haberim, the religious club, as Jesus told the story. Then, in what had to be the rhetorical equivalent of a bomb going off, Jesus gets to the point of the story: “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
Stated differently: “Listen, harberim group. There will be more joy in heaven over just one member of the ha eretz group who repents, than ninety-nine of you haberim who act as though you never need to repent.” Oh, the haberim the got the message.
But Jesus, who likens himself to the dirty dumb shepherd who lost the dirty dumb sheep, isn’t finished yet. He has another story. He goes on to liken himself to an absent-minded woman. “Or what woman,” He says, “…having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”
Okay, you have ten coins, or, drachmas – as the Greek says. Ten drachmas was essentially a two-week paycheck for a middle-to-upper class family in Jesus’ time. Furthermore, it says the woman had the money. It almost sounds like an allowance from the husband. All told, it appears they were more upper than middle class. Once more, lets look at the economics from our point of view. Take a one hundred thousand dollar a year salary – after taxes. That means, in American dollars, that your two week pay is four thousand one hundred sixteen dollars – again, after taxes and FICA and all of that are taken out. Now, the woman lost one coin of the ten. That’s 10%. 10% of $4166 is $416.00. That, for some of you might amount to a car payment. For some of you, that’s a lot of money. Others might say, “Ouch. Losing that hurts a little, but we’ll manage.”
Speaking of cars, for you drivers out there, how many of you have lost – or misplaced – your car keys? If you did and found them, I bet there was one of two reactions. First, you were upset at yourself because your keys are right there where you put them and you just forgot to look there! Second, once you found them, you breathed a huge sigh of relief and had a short blast of euphoria.
Now, the woman in the story didn’t lose car keys obviously. But she did lose the one drachma, the one coin, or, in our terms, the four hundred sixteen bucks. Here’s an interesting side note. Back then they didn’t have hardwood floors or Berber carpeting. They were dirt floors; they were dusty floors. That accounts for the fact that she swept the house -- literally swept the dirt on the ground -- for this one coin little coin. So she was somewhat absent-minded for losing it. Then she comes off kind of manic in her attempts to find it.
So we have a sheep, a lost sheep, just one sheep in story number one. Similarly, we have a coin, a lost coin, just one coin in story number two. But a sheep, if lost, might possibly find its way back. It could get up, look around, listen for the voice of the shepherd one would think. But a guy by the name of Ken Bailey thinks differently. He wrote a book on these stories, and he makes an interesting point about a lost sheep. He writes:
My shepherd friends of Lebanon and Palestine tell me that a sheep once lost is terrified. It sits down, usually in as sheltered a place as is immediately available and starts shaking and bleating. When found it is in such a state of nervous collapse that it cannot stand or be made to stand. It cannot walk or be led, nor will it respond to the shepherd’s well-known call. If it is to be restored to the fold the shepherd must carry it on his two shoulders
Unlike the lost sheep, the lost coin is an inanimate object. It can’t shake and bleat; it can’t collapse or stand; it cannot walk or be led. It still has economic value, but it’s dead; it’s lifeless. It can only be found.
I started talking about groups this morning. When I look out from the FPC pulpit here, I see a group of people of which I’m a part too. Compared to today’s stories from Jesus, which group are we more like? Are we like the haberim – proud of our religion or our Presbyterianism or our church-going or our cherished points of view be they more liberal, more moderate, or more conservative? Or are we more like the ha eretz -- people who have tried to live up to a standard but have fallen short again and again; or folks who are only too aware of what their lives are and what they are not before a holy God; or people who are lost and hope to be found and just want to fit in; or folks that don’t even know they’re lost but are, and, once found, are going to know a joy like nothing else?
But forget about those groups now and think of this. What if there were just one of you today who feels lost; who feels dead to God, dead to the world, dead to others; who is beaten down by what their lives have become; who questions the use of everything; who feels less than zero?
Assuming there is one (and I believe there is), all I ask of you is this: consider the value a dirty, dumb shepherd placed on just one lost sheep. He went out – to heck with the risk! – and brought that sheep home. Then he throws a party. Consider the value an absent-minded, manic woman placed on just one lost coin. She lit a lamp, swept the floor, stopped at nothing until she found it. Then she throws a party. That’s not group dynamics. That’s the value of just one. That’s the value God places on you – the God who did not spare His own Son, but gave him for us all.
The haberim murmured and grumbled at Jesus that day. They said, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” One translation says, “This man is a friend of sinners and eats with them.”Isn’t it ironic that one of the most beautiful names for Jesus came first from the lips of His enemies!
His name was Henry Francis Lyte. He was just one man. He died in his early 50s from tuberculosis. When he was a growing boy, his father abandoned the family, left him and placed him in a Northern Ireland boarding school, and never saw him again. His mother and younger sister moved to London where they both died very young. As I said, in the end, he was just one man.
Later in life, and exactly two weeks before he died, he wrote a little prayer that has become a classic in our treasury of hymns. Perhaps he was thinking of the family he had lost, as the life was slipping out of him, when he prayed to God:
Abide with me! Fast falls he even-tide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!
Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings;
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea.
Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me.
What more is there to say – for that one man and for us all -- but Amen!
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