Once Shy Twice Bitten!

Text:  John 3:1-5, 10

Theme:  “Once Shy Twice Bitten”

3^rd Sunday after Epiphany

January 25, 2015

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.  When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

“Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time… .”  A “second time” implies that there must have been a first.   What do we have here?  We’re not even told what happened when the “word of the Lord came to Jonah the first time”.  The first time, the word must have gone in one ear and out the other. 

“First time” takes us to chapter 1, verse 1:  “The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.’”  Then comes that magnificent Sunday School story about Jonah in the belly of the great fish.  He didn’t go to Nineveh.  He booked passage on a ship to Tarshish.  A horrible storm ensued.  The captain and sailors -- who were religious and superstitious to the extreme, it would appear -- confront Jonah.  Maybe this nasty weather that could cause shipwreck and disaster on the high seas was punishment for some sin.  Jonah tells the truth; he’s running from God (more specifically, from the paneh Yahweh, the “face of God”).  He volunteers to have them toss him into the churning wake.  They don’t want to do it at first, but then proceed to ask forgiveness for what they are about to do and they do it anyway.  Jonah gets the heave ho, and the seas calm down. 

Jonah chapter 1, verse 17:  “But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.”  Fast-forward to Jonah chapter 2, verse 10:  “And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” 

Good. Now we’re caught up. 

There’s an old saying that goes like this:  “Once bitten twice shy.”  What this idiom means is that if something or someone hurts you, you tend to avoid that something or someone in the future.  For example, Jill says:  “Let’s go ride the rollercoaster.”  Jane replies:  “No, thanks.  I got really sick on one of those once.”  Once bitten twice shy.

Jonah, interestingly enough, is this idiom in reverse.  Instead of “Once bitten twice shy”, it’s “once shy twice bitten.”

The first “bite”, if you will, is the first word of the Lord.  And Jonah is shy about that word – that is, he is willing to obey that word but only up to a point he determines.  The word of God said “go.”  Jonah went.  But he didn’t go to the place where God told him to go.  He was shy about the full import of the word.  He was shy; he got it only partially right.

When was the last time the word of the Lord came to you like it did to Jonah?  Well, for my own part, I have no experience of the Lord directly telling me to go to such and such place and do or say this or that.  Direct revelation to me has not been my experience.  In my experience, the word of the Lord to me is what the Lord wants me to do – based on what the Scriptures say, the counsel that trusted family members and friends give me, discernment, and, at times, much prayer.  I call it “the right thing.”  What God wants me to go and do is the right thing.

Have you ever had the experience where you know what God wants you to do, the right thing to do, but you just can’t seem to get it right, or do it right, one hundred percent?  “Bitten”, if you will, by the right thing to do, you become shy; you become hesitant; you’re willing to go, but not wholeheartedly.

There’s a man I’m thinking of.  Lets call him “John Doe.”  John Doe is Christian, and he loves his wife, Jane.  Jane says, “You offered to help me, and I really need to get a gallon of skim milk.  I’m pretty busy at the moment. Do you think you could run over to Kroger and get the milk? No hurry. I just need it by tonight.”  John, a Christian, knows the Scripture which says of marriage:  “Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ,” and so he decides to go!  But then he remembers that new pair of Nike running shoes that he showed to Jane weeks ago.  Jane said, “Go ahead and get buy them.”  John says, “Nah, I really don’t need them.”  But, on his way over to Kroger to get the skim milk, he sees Sports Authority in the corner of his eye.  What would he rather do, jockey for position in the Kroger parking lot or pull into Sports Authority?  That’s a no-brainer; the milk can wait.  So he has gone, presumably, to do what his wife told him.  But it doesn’t end up that way.  In the end, he walks out with those new running shoes and a few other goodies he convinced himself he needed.  Skim milk was the farthest thing from his mind.  He starts to head home, but he gets caught in a traffic jam on Loop 288!  (This is like the belly of the fish from the Jonah story!)  Then the bad traffic finally “vomits” him into his neighborhood, and he is bitten a second time:  “Oh my!  I’m supposed to go get skim milk!”  He turns right around, gets to Kroger, only to discover that they’re out of skim milk!

The comparison of the fictitious John Doe to Jonah is certainly not perfect; I can’t really say it’s “apples to apples”.    In fact, John Doe actually intended to pick up the milk when his wife asked him.  When God said to Jonah “Go to Nineveh”, it says that Jonah “ran away from the face of the Lord.”  He had no intention of going to Nineveh.

What about Tarshish?  Now THAT option held promise!  Why Tarshish?  Here’s the reasoning presented by Presbyterian pastor and author, Eugene Peterson:

For one thing, it is a lot more exciting than Nineveh.  Nineveh was an ancient site with layer after layer of ruined and unhappy history.  Going to Nineveh to preach was not a coveted assignment for a Hebrew prophet with good references.  But Tarshish was something else.  Tarshish was exotic.  Tarshish was adventure.  Tarshish had the appeal of the unknown furnished with baroque details from the fantasizing imagination.  Tarshish in the biblical references was a “far-off and sometimes idealized port.”

Tarshish was like a paradise on earth, a shangrila!  It’s “Vegas, baby”!  For John Doe, it was Sports Authority.  What is Tarshish for you?

Friends, we could spend an entire church year or more just unpacking the gifts, teachings, applications, and insights that God gives us in the book – and story! – of Jonah.  Maybe we should! 

One initial lesson Jonah teaches is about humility.  Jonah was shy because he was afraid:  he was afraid of God; he feared failure; he feared rejection.  All those fears were too much and Tarshish sounded so good.  To Tarshish he went.  He disobeyed God.  That’s the first movement of the story.  The second time, after the belly of the fish and the second “bite” (or word from the Lord), Jonah does obey.  But at the end of the book, he’s still not happy.  In fact, he’s angry – angry that the Lord would show compassion and love to the Gentile Ninevites and not keep divine compassion and love reserved for the Jews, the “chosen” ones. 

Again, Eugene Peterson: 

The first movement in the story shows Jonah disobedient; the second shows him obedient.  Both times Jonah fails.  We never do see a successful Jonah.  He never gets it right.  I find this rather comforting… .  This is training in humility, which turns out to be not a groveling but a quite cheerful humility.

In all our disobedience AND obedience, we don’t get it right.  In the Christian reckoning, only the One who was made known, made manifest in that first epiphany season gets it right – even Jesus Christ. 

In God’s reckoning, even the twice-failing, unsuccessful Jonah was great.  Nineveh changed its mind; it repented.  Mission accomplished.

Jesus says:  “The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.”

That greater One is the One we worship here today.  And, our obedience and disobedience notwithstanding, we, like the Ninevites, have, today, confessed our sins, changed our minds, turned to God, and heard the good word of forgiveness.  Now we get to serve in cheerful humility! 

Amen.

(Quotations from Eugene Peterson were drawn from his work, Under the Unpredictable Plant:  An Exploration in Vocational Holiness.)

Anything Good?

Text:  John 1:43-51

Theme:  “Anything Good?”

2^nd Sunday after the Epiphany

January 18, 2015

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

46 “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

49 Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

50 Jesus said, “You believe[a] because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51 He then added, “Very truly I tell you,[b] you[c] will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’[d] the Son of Man.”

The Epiphany season rocks on!  Epiphany means to “make known” or “make manifest”.  The One being made known is Jesus, and one of the ways He does that is through calling disciples.  He called them then; He calls them now.

Disciples 1 and 2, in John’s Gospel, are Andrew and Simon Peter.  So we have two of the original twelve in place.  Disciple 3 and Disciple 4, the gentlemen we heard about today, are, respectively Philip and Nathanael.  Thus, we have Andy and Rocky lined up on one day.  On the next, Philip and Nathanael (we’ll call them Phil and Nate) come on board.  In only two days, Jesus has one third of His apostolic band.  Pretty cool!

Others would come later on – folks like Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector.  Using the familiar language of our day, Simon, being a member of the Zealot party, was an archconservative.  He was a red state, tea party guy through and through!   He and others like him despised the centralized power of the Roman government.  He yearned for the day when it would be overthrown and the nation of Israel would be restored to its rightful place.  Anyone who disagreed with this view was a traitor. 

This takes us to Matthew the tax collector.  Talk about a study in contrasts!  Again using today’s popular language, he was the radical, the liberal.  He, a Jew, actually worked for the government that Simon the Zealot so despised.  And worse, he collected taxes.   In belief, point of view, and opinion about the main issues of the day, Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector were polar opposites. 

Yet, somewhere along the line, all that they held dear – Simon’s conservatism, on the one hand, and Matthew’s liberalism, on the other – finally came in second place or didn’t even show up at all.  All of that changed when a rabbi and itinerant preacher from an out-of-the-way, backwoods, tiny, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, hayseed town called Nazareth said “Follow me.”  He brought them together by giving them both a higher calling – that is, to follow the One manifested – epiphanied! -- to them as the Son of God and the King of Israel. 

A few Sundays back I suggested to you that, if current statistical trends continue, the Presbyterian Church (USA) will cease to exist in a generation.  Rev. Blair Monie, who retired last year as pastor at Preston Hollow Presbterian Church in North Dallas and is now a part-time professor at Austin Seminary, shared the description one of his friends gave of our denomination:  “It’s a Republican church that is led by Democrats.”  And therein lies a big part of the problem that fuels the dismal statistics:  the denomination – in its rank, file, and leadership – has become so political and reactionary – slouching and lurching either to the right or left -- that it’s canceling itself out.  Folks like me, at the tail end of the baby boomer generation, and on down to 40somethings, 30somethings, and young millennials, repulsed by the politicization of the church and politics in general, are voting with their feet.  In the past few weeks, I’ve read accounts of people – even decades-long church members – who simply have stopped coming to church.  They’ve made a conscious decision to go no more.  They are done with it.  One article was entitled “The Rise of the ‘Dones’”.  Give me your email, and I’ll send you the links!

In our reading, Nathanael asked what is called a rhetorical question.  He inquires:  “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Nowadays, more and more folks are phrasing the question differently:  “Can anything good come from the church?”

Out in the narthex, on the Sunday when I shared the statistical trends, one of our members approached me and, with concern of voice, asked:  “What can we do?” 

One thing we can do, by way of beginning to make a beginning, is to engage, think over, and pray about what a Gospel reading like today’s gives us.   Begin by paying renewed attention to what actually happens when Jesus calls disciples.  Did He ask for their opinions and see if they matched His own?  Was that the price of admission?    Did He solicit their views and make sure they were lock and step with his own?   Was the subjugation of Israel to being a client state of the expanding Roman empire an issue that He was curious about?  Did their political bent – either to the left or to the right – matter to Him?  You’re a tax collector.  So?  You’re a zealot.  So?  Did Jesus offer fresh techniques to Matthew so he could collect more revenue?  Did He strengthen Simon’s partisan zealotry, love of country, patriotism and such? Was He discriminatory?  Did He withhold His call?  Did He refuse to call someone because they weren’t spiritual enough or because He had a “personality conflict” with him/her?  Did He shun people because they weren’t sufficiently “like Him”?  Did He insist on a handshake, a hug, a name properly spelled out on an official lanyard or tag?

No. He did none of that; He said none of that – zip, zero, nada! But He did say “Follow me.”  He did declare this:  “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

The miracle is that people did.  There was – there is! – something about who Jesus was – and is! – that was compelling.  All of that religious, spiritual, political, mental, emotional, vocational, familial baggage was set aside and put in its place so that the main thing could be the main thing.  The main thing was – and is! -- the wonderful drawing power of the One who said:  “Come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest.  Take MY yoke upon you, and learn from me that I am meek and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” 

Phil found Nate and said:  “We found him – yes, we did!  We found the One that Moses and the Prophets wrote about!  Jesus of Nazareth!”  Nathanael asks:  “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  He would discover the answer soon enough:  A man, a rabbi, a voice, a call, a cross, and empty tomb, a full forgiveness for sin, a rest for the weary, a world indelibly changed, a resurrection of the body, and a life everlasting that begins now.

Can anything good come from the church?  That’s really not the question.  But can anything good come from Nazareth?  Now we’re on to something.  We have begun to make a beginning!

Amen.

A Sacrament Comes out of Hiding!

Text:  Mark 1:9-11

Theme:  Holy Baptism:  A Celebration of the Sacrament

Baptism of the Lord/1^st Sunday after the Epiphany

January 11, 2015

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Having heard it from the Gospel of Mark, we now turn to the Presbyterian Book of Confessions:

“We utterly condemn the vanity of those who affirm the sacraments to be nothing else than naked and bare signs.  No, we assuredly believe that by Baptism we are engrafted in Christ Jesus,” so says the Scots Confession.

“Christ has instituted this external washing with water and by it has promised that I am as certainly washed with his blood and Spirit from the uncleanness of my soul and from all my sins, as I am washed externally with water which is used to remove the dirt from my body,” so declares the Heidelberg Catechism.

“Now to be baptized in the name of Christ is to be enrolled, entered, and received into the covenant and family, and so into the inheritance of the children of God,” so states the Second Helvetic Confession.

“Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life:  which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world,” so affirms the Westminster Confession.

“By humble submission to John’s baptism, Christ joined himself to men in their need and entered upon his ministry of reconciliation in the power of the Spirit.  Christian baptism marks the receiving of the same Spirit by all his people.  Baptism with water represents not only cleansing from sin, but a dying with Christ and a joyful rising with him to new life,” so says the Confession of 1967.

Then there is this from the Brief Statement of Faith – Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.):  “The same Spirit who inspired the prophets and apostles rules our faith and life in Christ through Scripture, engages us through the Word proclaimed, (and) claims us in the waters of baptism.”

And I couldn’t resist; I had to throw in a little Martin Luther  – this from the Large Catechism:  “Thus we must regard baptism and make it profitable to ourselves, that when our sins and conscience oppress us, we strengthen ourselves and take comfort and say:  ‘Nevertheless, I am baptized; but if I am baptized, it is promised me that I shall be saved and have eternal life both in soul and body.”

I’m here to say that this day is more than finding out if the Dallas Cowboys will maintain their spotless record for games on the road.  Our task today is to celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Baptism for all the gift that it is and then to go on our way rejoicing!  A Dallas win will only be gravy – for; with, lose, or draw in the “Ice Bowl”, we are saved in soul and body. 

What opposes the Cowboys today is a Packer defense that will stop at nothing to stifle and stop the vaunted Dallas ground game.  What tries to stifle and stop us is not the Packer defense but what Luther dubbed our sins and conscience.  They, our sins and conscience, will beat us to a pulp.  They will sully our spirits; they will mess with our minds.  And what of our bodies?  No less a giant than King David declared:  “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (that’s Psalm 32).  Another word, a popular and current term, for that keeping silent is denial.  It is the devilish art of self-deception.  If we say we have no sin, who are we deceiving?  Ourselves! 

If the Sacrament of Baptism is as wonderful as the confessors assert (and I just gave you a small portion/a list of quotes of what they had to say of Baptism), WHY do we pay scant reference to it?  Why are baptisteries hidden behind screens and curtains?  Why does the baptismal font appear to be no more than an odd piece of furniture collecting dust in a house of worship?  If people knew what Baptism gives and what it profits them, they would come running – like the whole of Jerusalem came running out to John the Baptist!  They would treasure it, use it, rely on it, throw it up against everything that tries to get them down.  They would scream, from the depths of their souls, to the world:  “Do what you must!  Do what you may!  NEVERTHELESS, I AM BAPTIZED!”

The good news of this grand day is not that our spirits are soaring to God – although that might surely be a result.  The good news of this grand day is not that our tender emotions have been touched and fortified – although this, too, could occur.  Our spirits and emotions seek out God, and many times they come away empty-handed.  And then all we discover is that faith and spirituality are hard to fake.

Where, then, is God to be found – in the precious fragility of our spirits and emotions?  Is that where to look?   Look to the Scriptures.  Let that living and active Word of God make its case.  Look to Jesus.  Look to Him on the day of His baptism.  He’s not up there in heaven far removed from you or engaging you in some cosmic game of hide and go seek.  At His baptism, He’s just another face in the crowd of humanity right here on terra firma, where we are at.  He strolls right up to John the Baptism to be baptized. 

You mean Jesus, the sinless Son of the living God?  He doesn’t need what John had to offer:  a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  No, but He gets Himself baptized anyway -- as the Scriptures say, to “fulfill all righteousness.”  Righteousness is not something to be achieved.  It is to be fulfilled.   Big difference.  And it takes a Jesus to make the difference.  

At His Baptism, our Lord take upon Himself all that is wrong with us.  To the Corinthian Christians, St. Paul wrote:  “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

It’s a big difference because it is a big exchange.  In the German language, it’s called the frohliche wechsel, the “blessed exchange”.  Our sin.  His righteousness.  Our sin becomes His.  His righteousness becomes ours. 

From today’s Gospel we learn where the delight and pleasure of God lie:  in His beloved Son.  “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well-pleased.”  And that’s where we are too.  What is ours is His; what is His is ours.  So God delights in us too.

This is sure as God’s Words were put upon you at your Baptism.  Rev. Dr. Nagel said it so beautifully in his 1990 sermon for the Baptism of the Lord: 

With the water His name was put on you at your Baptism.  You are not just a doubtful, ambiguous, meaningless hopeless bunch of atoms bouncing around.  You have the word of God put on you -- at your Baptism, surely, and at Jesus’ baptism too.  For there Jesus is in solidarity with us and we with Him.  Because He is the beloved Son, we with Him are beloved sons and daughters, delighted in and beloved of God.  So you can’t just drag along dreary, fearful, guilt-ridden, nobody-loves-me, me-against-the-rest, me-against-the-system, me-separate, all alone.  When John saw Jesus separate, Jesus said, “No. Us.”  When Jesus says “us,” He takes on what we are and gives us what He has.  The Righteous One fulfills all righteousness, and you are in on that where God says you are at – in His delight with Jesus… .  It goes with you as it goes with Him.  (Taken from:  Selected Sermons of Norman Nagel:  From Valparaiso to St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 2004.)

Soli deo Gloria!  To God alone the glory – today and forevermore.  Amen.