God's House: An Appreciation

Text:  Psalm 27:1, 4-9

Theme:  “God’s House:  An Appreciation”

3rd Sunday after the Epiphany

January 26, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?

One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:  that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

For in the day of trouble    he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent   and set me high upon a rock.

Then my head will be exalted   above the enemies who surround me; at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;    I will sing and make music to the Lord.

Hear my voice when I call, Lord;  be merciful to me and answer me.

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”   Your face, Lord, I will seek.

Do not hide your face from me,  do not turn your servant away in anger;    you have been my helper.  Do not reject me or forsake me,   God my Savior.

One day, Lord willing, there will be another item checked off on my bucket list.  Your bucket list, of course, are those things that you would like to accomplish before your journey through this life is through. 

One item on my list involves travel.  I would really like to visit the holy land.  I’ve been to our nation’s capital; on my first trip there as a young boy, I supposedly rode in Jackie Kennedy’s limousine — or so the story goes.   I’ve kissed the Blarney stone.  The Empire State building?  I’ve been to the top.  I’ve stood in the gazebo outside Salzburg, Austria, where Captain VonTrapp wooed Fraulein Maria in “The Sound of Music.”  I’ve seen the Mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark.  As an 8 year old boy, I faintly remember visiting Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp outside Munich, Germany.  I’ve hoisted steins of beer in the Hofbrau Haus, walked the streets of Shakespeare at Stratford upon the Avon, had a cheeseburger at the original Hard Rock Cafe in London, and I’ve watched my ecstatic brother-in-law actually hold in his hand the guitar that once belonged to Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.  I marveled at the Colosseum in Rome and stood before the high altar in St. Peter’s basilica, examined the ancient Scriptural manuscripts in the Vatican library.  I’ve been to Savannah, Georgia with my bride and saw where they filmed “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”  I rode high atop red, double-decker buses and, when visiting San Francisco, took those “little cable cars” that “climb halfway to the stars.”

But I’ve never been to the “wailing wall” in Jerusalem.  Neither have I walked the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives.  I haven’t dipped my feet into the Jordan River or gazed upon the shepherd’s fields outside Bethlehem that remain to this day.  That would be nice.  But better yet would be a trip up to the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.  There’s a little fishing village there called Capernaum — and if I had one place in the holy land to go, that would be it.  The area itself has retained most of it’s pristine beauty — as photos from Google Earth demonstrate.  The only “touristy” thing is a visitor’s center.

If you were to visit Capernaum today, you would take note of the archaeological excavations.  They are centered on the small, Jewish synagogue not far at all from the lakeshore.  And right “next door” to that synagogue dated to the time of Christ, they have uncovered a home.  While it cannot be conclusively proved that this was the residence of Peter and Andrew (that Robert mentioned in today’s Gospel Reading), it’s quite likely that it is.  After worshipping in that synagogue one day, Jesus was invited into that home.  Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with the flu.  As the story goes, Jesus went to where she lay; He lifted her up by the hand, and the fever left her.  She, then, served them. 

After the Lord left the Nazareth of His childhood and began His public ministry, He went to live in Capernaum.  That’s the area where He called His first followers.  Capernaum became His home. 

Geographically, we are not in Capernaum.  But I want to make the argument and state the case that, in terms of our faith and our spirits, we are in Capernaum.  Jesus says:  “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” 

Did you know that for one hundred thirty five years Christians have gathered together in the name of Jesus at First Presbyterian Church of Denton?   On May 2, 1878, this congregation was organized by a Dallas pastor and a traveling evangelist.  There were fourteen charter members that began to gather in the name of Jesus:  two children, eight women, and four men.  They gathered in a small building that served as a school during the week. 

Six years later, in 1884, they had their first installed pastor, Rev. R. S.  Burwell.  In addition, they also completed construction of their new church building that year.  I’ve brought along a miniature model of that house of God into the chancel this morning that was recently uncovered.  As it is written in The History of The First Presbyterian Church:  “It was affectionately known as the Little Red Church.”  In a remembrance of the dedication of that church, Rev. Burwell had this to say:  “I wish I had time to tell you of our trials and tribulations in getting a respectable place to worship.  In spite of all difficulties, in October, 1884, we began to worship in The Little Red Church.  I can tell you we were thankful to God!  I helped to lay the foundation thereof, and when it was completed, I felt like shouting, ‘Grace, grace unto it.’ I remember my first text in the Little Red Church.  It was, ‘And let the hand of the Lord our God be upon us,’ and that is my prayer for your work of faith and labor of love now.”

I speak in appreciation of this history today.  That Little Red Church was Capernaum.  It was the house of God.  There people would gather to hear the Gospel and to receive the Sacraments. 

In 1926, “The Little Red Church” gave way to what was known as “The Rock Church.”  It was built on the same site as “The Little Red”, and the cost of that new facility — get ready for this! — was a hefty $45,000.00.  It was written of the Rock Church:  “It looked like a church, and when we entered, there seemed to be a peace and quietness that gave us the feeling that we had come to worship God.” 

The means of Grace — the Gospel and the Sacraments — made their way through the history of the Rock Church, and this brings us to 1960 which was, incidentally, the year of my birth.  In that year papers signed by officials of this congregation to purchase a parcel land (that you happen to be occupying right now) for the price of $22,000.00. 

The last services in the Rock church were held on June 27, 1965.  On that day, the members made procession from downtown Denton to where we sit now.  Each person carried a hymnbook.  That Lord’s Day service began in the Rock Church and it ended right here. 

I speak in appreciation of this today.  I praise almighty God for this today, and I invite you to join me.  This is our house of God; this is our Capernaum.  The psalmist declared:  “I was glad when they said to me ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”  King David, in the psalm appointed for this third Sunday after the Epiphany, said: 

One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:  that I may dwell in the house of the Lord  all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord  and to seek him in his temple.

Each time we enter the house of God, we really do have a rendezvous with destiny.  Being together with the Lord IS our destiny.  Jesus said that “In my Father’s house are many rooms.  I go there to prepare a place for you.”  This is the same Jesus, the Son of God, who lived in Capernaum, who proclaimed the kingdom of God, who called people to repent and to believe the good news and to become citizens of the kingdom of God.  This is the same Jesus who left His home in heaven to make His home with us.  And during His stay with us, He went on to suffer and die for all that was and is wrong with us.  He rose bodily from the grave as the first-born of a new creation, a new creation of which we, by grace are a part of.  And even though He has bodily ascended into heaven, He sent His promised Holy Spirit, and the truth remains that wherever two or three are gathered in His Name, there He is in the midst of them. 

First Presbyterian Church.  In the words of Rev. Burwell:  “Grace, grace unto it… . ‘And let the hand of the Lord our God be upon us.’” 

Finally, in the words of Jacob of old:  “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it… .  How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”  Amen.

Text:  John 1:29-42

Theme:  "Two More Really Great, Short Questions!"

2nd Sunday after the Epiphany

January 19, 2014

First Presbyterian Church

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

²⁹ The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ³¹ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”

³² Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. ³³ And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”^[f]

³⁵ The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. ³⁶ When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”³⁷ When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. ³⁸ Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”³⁹ “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

⁴⁰ Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.⁴¹ The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). ⁴² And he brought him to Jesus.

Earlier this week, I tried to look up the longest question ever recorded. Answer.com reported back:  "Don't you have anything better to do than sit at your desk asking questions like that?"  Perhaps the folks at Answer.com have a point -- because long questions really don't do any good in the broader scheme of things.  Short questions are much, much better.  My grandson, Noah, might as well be a Harvard Ph.D.  He has an inquisitive mind, and he asks the shortest question of them all quite regularly:  "Why?"  From why it's mashed potatoes instead of French fries to the reason why we're not going to the toy aisles at Target, the question is always:  "Why?"  There was a period of time when I thought that this was the only word that came out of his lips!  But at 4 1/2 yrs of age, it's a doggone good question to ask.  He's not afraid to ask it -- and, in the process, he's learning and putting all these things together in his head.  And, as grandparents, I can say that my wife and I treat him much better than the folks at Ask.com treated me!

"Why?" It's a really great -- and short! -- question. 

In the Bible, the first question God asks to a human being is a really great, short question.  So we turn to the story of Adam and Eve.  Our pick-up point is Genesis chapter three.  Here we go:  "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the Garden."  It must have been a lovely day in paradise lost!  Perhaps this was the first time the game of "hide and seek" was ever played; I don't know.  "But the Lord God called to the man:  'Where are you?'"  Game over.

"Where are you?"  Three words.  Actually, in the Hebrew language, it's only one word:  ayeka.  "Where are you?"  In the Sunday School and Confirmation classes of my childhood, we were regularly presented with the attributes of God as demonstrated in the Bible.  One of them was omniscience, and that means "all-knowing".  God is all knowing.  So one has to wonder:  if God is all-knowing, why does He even have to ask questions -- and even really great, short questions?  Obviously, almighty God didn't ask the question for His own sake.  He already knew everything.  He must have asked it for the sake of Adam and the sake of Eve. It's as if God is saying:  "I know where you're at, you're hiding -- which is, of course, patently ridiculous and an exercise in futility.  But I want to hear why you're hiding from your mouths.  I ask the question for your sake."

We take leave from Genesis and turn to today:  the 2nd Sunday in the Epiphany season, the season of making things known, the season that dispels the darkness, the season of light!  It's that time in the church year when we think about how to share the light of Christ with others. 

In today's reading from the Gospel of John, John the Baptist shares the light.  Pointing to Jesus, he says:  "Look, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."  He then proceeds to give his "testimony".  When we 21st century believers think of "testimony", we picture a person standing up in public to speak.  He or she tells his or her story -- a story -- with variations here and there --  of how awful life was before Jesus, how incredible it was when they "accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior" (or words to that effect), and how hunky-dory life has now become because Jesus is in it. And, of course, your life can be just dandy and hunky-dory too if you really, fully, and completely give your heart to Jesus.  Do you see the difference between this kind of modern testimony and John's?  John was wasn't wanting people to have a life like his.  It wasn't about him.  All he wanted, in keeping with his call, was to point people to Jesus.  It's at the Jesus point, not the John point, where lasting change can begin to happen.

John, because of his testimony, lost two of his followers.  Aren't you supposed to gain followers with some sort of testimony?  John, pointing to Jesus, said "Look, the lamb of God!"  Two of John's followers then flipped and became followers of Jesus. 

Now, here's John 1:38:  "Turning around, Jesus saw them following... ."  It is at this point -- this point! -- when we hear another one of those really great, short questions.  Jesus asks His new followers:  "What do you want?"

We are followers of Jesus.  We may not be 100% sure of what, exactly, that means.  But we're here -- here on the receiving end of Jesus' words.  What if Jesus asked that really great, short question of us:  "What do you want?"

Before we could even answer, we'd be shocked, stunned, and tongue-tied.  We'd look around to see if anyone else was listening to how we might answer.  But the question is the question, and this question is unique because it's Jesus, the Lamb of God, who is asking you:  "What do you want?" He almost sounds like an "Alladin" kind of Jesus -- you know, the genie-in-the-bottle sort of thing.

Well, since you asked:  I want to be able to never see another Careflite helicopter landed in the middle of University Drive like I did this past week.  I want cancer to be cured, period.  End of discussion.  I want a world where people do not slip and fall during an ice storm and end up in a coma.  I want fear and depression and addiction to be stripped from the human experience.  I want family ties strengthened and relationships restored.  I want politics civil.  And I don't want another American boy and girl to come back from Afghanistan or Iraq missing an arm or a leg.  I  don't want to hide from you or from anyone anymore.  You remember that bit about paradise lost?  Remove the "lost" part.  You'd best sit down, Jesus.  Grab yourself a cup of coffee or a bottle of water in the fridge.  You asked.  And I'm answering.  My list is long, and I'm only just getting started; I've barely scratched the surface.

"What do you want?"  asks Jesus.  It's a really great, short question. 

Amazingly, those two new followers of John returned the favor.  They offered a really great, short question of their own. They ask Jesus:  "Where are you staying?"  "Come and see," says Jesus.  We are told that the two of them went on to spend the day with Him.  That's what they wanted:  to spend time with the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

The time spent with Jesus was not in vain.  It bore fruit. The epiphany of Jesus, the disclosure of Jesus, the afternoon hours spent with him that day, prompted one of them, Andrew, to go off and find his brother, Simon Peter. "We have found the Messiah," he tells Simon. There was no telling Peter about how wonderful and "transformed" his life had become since spending time with Jesus.  That wasn't so important. What was important was bringing him to Jesus. 

"You are Simon son of John," says Jesus.  Jesus knows us even before we know Him.

There are times when it is tough to be a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus -- in a world where Careflite helicopters land in the neighborhood and cancers rips its way, randomly, through life. When it's tough, the really great and short questions can provide their unique help:  "Where are you?" "What do you want?" 

Carry on and go where Jesus is staying.  "Wherever two or there are gathered in my Name, there am I in this midst of them.  And lo, I am with you always -- even to the end of the age."

Amen.

Our Lord and Our Bible

Text:  John 1:1-18

Theme:  "Our Lord and Our Bible"

2nd Sunday After Christmas Day

January 5, 2014

FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome^[a] it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and^[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

It's the last day of Christmas. Tomorrow, January 6, is the Epiphany of our Lord with its own stories to tell of the manifestation, the revealing, the disclosure of Jesus to the world. But  let's not get ahead of ourselves.  There's more than a little bit of Christmas left in our Gospel Reading, the Johannine prologue.  Out of the entire eighteen verses in the prologue, specific Christmas reference is verse 14: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." That's the NIV translation, and it's pretty heavy-duty stuff, so we better get it right.  The Living Bible, which was all the rage when I was a 15 year old whipper-snapper, puts it this way:  "And Christ became a human being and lived here on earth among us... ."  Sounds good to me, but I hadn't learned the Greek when I was a kid, and, besides, Living Bible is a paraphrase and not a direct translation. Next time you're at Mardel, the Christian bookstore here in town, and once you get past the "Duck Dynasty" kiosk right there in front, grab a Bible off the shelf -- any Bible will do -- and find a clerk. Ask the clerk if it's a translation or a paraphrase.  They'll look at you funny!   

Back to the text.  More recently, Eugene Peterson's "The Message" (another paraphrase) renders it as follows:  "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood."  Sounds as though Jesus lives right down the street.   Peterson gives us a "Mr. Rogers" sort of paraphrase.  Jesus is here!  "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood," and all of that.  It's the Jesus of the cardigan sweater!

If you go with your grandmother's King James version (a translation), you're getting warmer:  "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."  You're really heating up -- and you can really impress your friends -- when you go with the Latin:  Et Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis.  Why not tattoo it on your arm or across your back!   You're absolutely red-hot when you go with the Greek:  Kai O Logos sarcs egeneto kai eskenosen en emin. Here's my direct translation from the Greek:  "And the Word flesh became and pitched His tent among us."  I went with the "tent" rendering of eskenosen because it implies travel.  You never really could pin Jesus down as He made His way to the cross.    My other option would be to go with the "tabernacle" translation -- as in:  "The Word became flesh and 'tabernacled' among us."  Tent or tabernacle? Either way, any Jewish contemporary of Jesus would think back when the ark of the covenant -- the repository of the glory of the Lord on earth -- moved around in a tent or a tabernacle.  Now, says John, that Lord of glory moves around in a human body.  Was he 5'10"or 6'2"? Was His complexion fair or ruddy?  Was He right-handed or left?  Just how long was his beard?  And was there any male pattern baldness?  The texts of Scripture do not lend themselves to our aesthetic and artistic sensibilities when it comes to Jesus.  In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Isaiah says:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

 An "Elephant Man" Jesus would seem to be more "Scriptural", or else our Lord needs a makeover.  And we Christians, sad to say, are only too ready to offer it.  We turn Jesus into spiritual silly putty, and we mold and shape him to fit our politics and our worldviews; we make Him a member of our club.  And -- like the Pharisees and even the devil himself --we always find a Scripture for it.

 

One very popular worldview at the time of Jesus was called Gnosticism.  It came from the Greek term gnosis which meant knowledge, and it borrowed from the Platonic or Socratic philosophical schools.  One popular version of Gnosticism held that every human being had a spark of the divine within them.  Call it your spirit; call it your soul, or what have you, but you had a spark of God within you.  That's what made you special.  But there was this one problem:  that spark was trapped; it was stuck inside your body.  Only when you shed your mortal coil, only when you died (so the thinking went) would you finally be set free.  That spark within you would fly away and return to the celestial fire.  It would go back to God.  No wonder Socrates gladly drank the hemlock.  The problem with humans, in the Gnostic view, was simply this:  you're human.  That's what's holding you back:  your body! 

 

But try that out on the Johannine prologue!   John didn't think that the problem was the human body.  Quite to the contrary!  The human body was -- and is! -- the repository not just of a spark of the divine.  In Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, that body holds the entire celestial fire!  In Jesus Christ, God honored the human body that God created  -- and dwelled in it fully. 

 

How well was that received?  The reviews are mixed, and they still are mixed. Some thumbs up.  Other thumbs down.  On the thumbs down side, there is this:  John says that "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him." Maybe that's not so bad.  Lots of people these days prefer not to be recognized.  They value their anonymity.  Even Jesus told His closest followers, at times, to keep things quiet about Him.  Theologians call it the "secrecy motif". In short, it's Jesus without a nametag!

 

But the worst of the thumbs down, the hardest to take, is this.  John says that Jesus "came to that which was his own"; he came to his ta idia, to his own people and places and things, to his own creation.  And "His own people" -- his hoi idioi -- "did not receive him." They denied His application.   In short, he was rejected.  He still is -- and not only by those who never darken the door of a church.  The rejection is most ecumenical, and it crosses denominational lines.  Those who are reject Him are often the first to claim allegiance to Him, and they'll even support Him -- as long as He becomes a "kinder, gentler" Moses; a new law-giver that helps them to build their brand of religion.

 

"The law was given through Moses," says our text.  But "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." 

 

The thumbs up side, the positive side of the review, is as follows:  "To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

 

Do you get it?  It's not that you are Jewish, Gentile, native American, German, or Scottish.  It's not that you claim Luther, Calvin, Pope Francis, Joyce Meyer, or Joel Osteen.  It's not about your ancestry, pedigree, attainments, resume'.  Do you get it?  It's not that you even made a decision for Christ or gave your heart to Jesus. Do you get it?  It's not that a parent or some authority figure made you knuckle under, forced you to go to Confirmation Class,  and to "believe or else!"  You have received Jesus in the Holy Gospel and the Sacraments.  And through a miracle of God's Holy Spirit you have to come to believe in the Name of Jesus.  You have been given the right -- as a sheer gift -- to be a child of God.

 

John 1:1-18.  It's a text worth committing to memory.  It has so much to say about who our Lord was and is.  It has much to say about our Bible and how it can be faithfully interpreted.  You can't have one without the other.  Without Jesus, the Bible becomes essentially a book of commands and punishments. It seeks conformity; it produces a "we versus they" thinking.  But without the Bible, Jesus becomes the proverbial blank slate -- a wispy, willowy, historical figure that we can superimpose our views upon. 

 

Your takeaway, this morning, is this:  Jesus is the Bible -- God's Word! -- in flesh.  Jesus is full, as John says, of "grace and truth."  Some -- like modern Pharisees and even like the devil himself -- will quote Scripture, pull it all out of context, set Jesus aside, and follow it all to hellish places.  But others will follow the grace and truth in Jesus Christ.

 

Who or what will you follow in 2014?  Happy New Year!

 

Amen.