Questions

My second attempt to use the media player. I'm not too happy with the sound quality of my little digital recorder, so I am a bit hesitant to post sermons; however, I hope to get a proper recording device for the sanctuary's sound system in the near future.

The theodicy questions presented in the book of Job are difficult ones, and cannot be taken lightly. Theologians have debated theodicy for centuries, and there seems to be a very fine line between what is othordox and what is heresy when discussing the goodness of God in light of human suffering. But I believe that Job has more to say about faith than orthodoxy.

Listen to it, you don't have to agree or disagree with it. It's not about that, which is why it's not called "Answers." My theology is never complete, but it is the dialogue that counts, right?

Questions

A Terrible Truth

"We human beings have an interesting way of centering our feelings of inadequacy on one idea in particular. We feel inadequate because we are not rich enough, smart enough, handsome enough, successful enough, fat enough, thin enough, or whatever else. We pretend that if we could just overcome that inadequacy we would be secure. That is a fiction. If we overcame it, we would just find something else to feel inadequate about. We clutch these 'sweet sicknesses' to our bosoms as the explanation for all our failures. We hide these secret weaknesses from all the world." -Spong, John Shelby. This Hebrew Lord. P.63

Not a new concept, by any means, but well articulated.

This Hebrew Lord

"I find the word religion and the connotations of the word religious strangely absent from the biblical story. Nowhere in the gospel do I find the goal of Christian mission to be that of making one religious; rather, that goal is to set one free, to call one to life, to invite one to love. I have become so impressed with this contrast that the words biblical and religious have become for me not synonyms, but antonyms. I have repeatedly discovered that the traditional religious meanings of many of the words of our Christian heritage have moved so far afield from the biblical meaning the words had when they first entered our theological vocabulary that misunderstanding is impossible to avoid (Spong, John Shelby. This Hebrew Lord. Pp 16-17)."

Hmmm...I think I like this book.

Sermon:The Sixth Sunday of Easter

As I have been away on vacation, and playing catch-up last week, this sermon is now a bit outdated. Anyway, here you go, this is my first attempt to load an audio file into blogger using the Yahoo! Media Player.

The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Sermon:The Fifth Sunday of Easter

The Story Begins to Spread

Acts 8:26-40

This story that we read in the book of Acts is a bit of a gray area for the season of Easter, it could really almost be better placed after Pentecost, which of course is the season of the Spirit, the time in which we focus on the Holy Spirit coming upon Christ’s disciples and empowering them to new ministries in his name. We see a lot of the Spirit moving and acting directly in this passage.

But, of course, there is another aspect to this story, which fits into the theme of the Easter season: this Ethiopian eunuch was reading a prophecy from Isaiah that specifically deals with the Passover sacrifice of Christ. It’s Easter stuff, it is good news.

At first glance, I can’t help but wonder how he happened to get his hands on a copy of the Hebrew Bible when he wasn’t even Hebrew. Maybe the Gideons placed it in his chariot!

But then looking a little bit deeper into the text, we see that this Ethiopian eunuch was reading from somewhere in the 53rd chapter of the Prophet Isaiah, so we can assume that he has read all the 52 chapters that come before it as well.

Isaiah just happens to have a few things to say about Ethiopians, and about eunuchs as well, although he hasn’t gotten to that part yet.

Isaiah 11:11 says that Lord will recover his people from Ethiopia, so for a Gentile who is curious about this Hebrew religion, this might just give him cause to continue reading, but we will get into that more later.

In Isaiah 56, which the Ethiopian eunuch has not reached yet, there are some interesting words about eunuchs, which will also become relevant later.

Bt first let’s size up the scene a little bit here. We begin with Philip, not the Ethiopian eunuch. Philip has been sent by an angel of the Lord to travel down a particular road from Jerusalem toward Gaza. Philip doesn’t know why he’s on that road, but he trusts God, and he trusts God’s messenger, so he goes.

While he’s on this road, he is directed by the Holy Spirit to go over to meet a chariot that was passing by on its way from Jerusalem. As Philip approaches the chariot, he still doesn’t know who he will meet or what he will find there, but he hears the Prophet Isaiah being read by someone inside.

In those days, it was customary to read out loud, even if there was no one around to listen. He was also probably reading in Greek, not Hebrew. What we call the Old Testament had been translated into Greek years before the time of Christ.

So Philip climbs in and they have a conversation, the proper way to begin any evangelistic encounter. We cannot evangelize someone by talking to them, we have to talk with them and hear their story.

Anyway, Philip discovers that this man is, in fact a eunuch, something which Luke or whoever wrote the book of Acts reminds us of again and again throughout this chapter. This is important. Deuteronomy 23:1 is very clear about eunuchs, and I am going to soften the language a little bit. “No one who has been castrated shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” If you don’t know what that means, I invite you to look it up or turn to your neighbor.

Dt. 23:1 prohibits eunuchs from entering the Temple, they are permanently unclean people, they are excommunicated from the church.

Now eunuchs, in the ancient world, were not uncommon, especially among those who served in the royal court as this man did. And Ethiopia, which was called Cush in those days, had already had access to the Hebrew Bible for several hundred years, going back to the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. So that at least explains how this eunuch may have gotten his hands on a copy of the Hebrew Bible and was reading it, but as a eunuch, he was probably identifying with the words that he read from Isaiah’s prophecy, “In his humiliation justice was denied him,” and so he asked Philip, “is he talking about himself or someone else?”

In other words, “might he be talking about someone like me?”

Here is a rather unique situation in scripture. Oftentimes we read about the gospel reaching out to the poor and the destitute, the outsiders, but this eunuch is not an outsider at all in his own culture. He is an official in the royal court of Ethiopia, and in charge of the treasury. If he possesses a scroll of the Hebrew Bible, or of even just the prophet Isaiah, he must be quite wealthy. But his sexual status cuts him off from the Temple, it makes him an outsider in a way that he has perhaps never before experienced.

However, in just a few short chapters of Isaiah, the eunuch will read (56:3-4), “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, The Lord will surely separate me from his people: and do not let the eunuch say, I am just a dry tree. For thus says the Lord: to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”

And that is what it’s all about, being joined to the Lord. Philip probably knew of that passage, we don’t know, but anyway, he wasn’t affected by the eunuch’s sexual status or race, he simply reached out to him with the love of Christ and the good news of the gospel.

“Christ died for the eunuch, too,” Actually we don’t really know what Philip told the eunuch exactly, except that his way of sharing the gospel with him produced immediate results, and the eunuch said to him, “Look, here is water, what is to prevent me from being baptized?”

Again, there were actually a few things to prevent the eunuch from being baptized. He was a Gentile, he was a eunuch, he was uncircumcised, of course if he had been castrated, I suppose that doesn’t really matter.

“Nothing,” whispered the Spirit to Philip, “absolutely nothing.” As a matter of fact, there are ancient sources that add to this passage, in which Philip says to the eunuch, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And the eunuch replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” And they pulled the chariot over, and Philip baptized the eunuch.

Several weeks ago, we asked one another the question, “what are the ramifications of Easter?” Here is one. “Walls of prejudice and prohibition that have stood strong for countless generations (See Note #1 Below)” suddenly came tumbling down when Christ himself came and was denied justice, and died so that someone else who was denied justice, who feels lost and humiliated and outcast might be restored to the fellowship of God’s family. Amen.

Note #1: From an article by Thomas G. Long in "Feasting on the Word," Year B: Fifth Sunday of Easter, p. 458.

The Journey Home: A Funeral Meditation

There is a story that is sometimes told at funerals about a ship sailing off into the horizon. There are two perspectives on that ship from someone standing on the beach. The one is of that ship getting farther and farther away, looking smaller and smaller until you can barely make it out anymore, and then it is gone completely, and the one on the beach is left standing there, all alone.

This is used to describe the process of dying that many people go through. Most of us know that people don’t often simply die, they sort of fade away and get farther and farther away from us until they are gone, just like that ship as it sailed away into the horizon.

But then there is the other perspective, that of someone standing on a beach as the ship is sailing closer and closer to it, getting sort of larger and larger and more distinguishable. Little by little the ship grows from being just a speck to a faint form, to an outline, to a ship with sails on it, perhaps, to being able to make out people on deck, to seeing their faces, and with that joy grows and grows because the journey is over and they are home now.

This, of course, is supposed to be the perspective from heaven, as our loved one draws closer and closer to his permanent home with the Lord.

I’ve always liked that story, it really sets up a beautiful picture in my mind of the dying process, which is really all about life, not death, even as death itself is only a transition from one stage of life to another; but there is a third perspective that is not told, and that is from the perspective of those who are onboard the ship.

At first, there is just the here and the now. He is alive and surrounded by friends and family and he can’t imagine being anywhere else. But then the ship casts off, and begins to move farther and farther away. And after a while, the voices of those on shore begin to grow faint, and the one onboard can’t tell what they are saying anymore, and then the people on the beach are harder to distinguish and he has to really strain to see them anymore, but still he looks and looks and leans over the railing to try and catch a glimpse of his family.

And then he stops looking, as his thoughts begin to draw towards the journey, towards his new home, which is waiting for him. So he rushes over to the opposite side of the ship, and look there is a speck of land, it is growing closer and closer and the excitement builds because there are loved ones waiting for him over there, too. And he doesn’t forget about the ones he left behind, but yearns to arrive at his new home.

-Excerpt from a funeral sermon that I gave for William H. "Fatty" Fazenbaker, d. April 21, 2009.

Such a Beautiful Song

In the churches I serve, we have a tradition of singing the Psalms during Sunday worship. For this I use a resource called The Psalter for Christian Worship, by Michael Morgan, published by Witherspoon Press. Michael Morgan's goal was to versify the psalter for ease of congregational singing, and so each psalm can be sung to a common hymn tune, instead of using traditional psalm tones. Suggestions for each psalm are provided, as well as the meter, so that more than one tune can easily be applied.

In preparing the service bulletin for the coming Sunday, I was looking over the Psalm for the Third Sunday of Easter, Psalm 4, and began to think, oh, what a mournful song for such a happy time as Easter. However, Psalm 4 is a song of lament, which is mournful, but sings about a faith in God which cannot be broken by long-suffering.

It is sung to the tune Slane(Be Thou My Vision):

God of all righteousness, hear when I pray,
In my distress be my hope and my stay;
Long have I suffered revilement and shame,
Great God of mercy, I call on your name.

Angry, yet silent, I know there will be
Justice according to holy decree;
Never to answer corruption in kind,
But in Your promise true peace will I find.

When those around me my faith would confound,
May I rejoice in Your gifts that abound;
Peace and assurance all discord withstand,
Safely I rest in the palm of your hand.

Da'ath Elohim

"The object and aim of the Hebrew system is Knowledge of God: da'ath elohim. Man can never know himself, what he is and what is his relation to the world, unless first he learn of God and be submissive to God's sovereign will." -Norman Snaith, The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament, Pp. 184-5.

Snaith says that the Greeks are just the opposite. "Know thyself...However, we find this approach of the Greeks nowhere in the Bible. The whole Bible, the New Testament as well as the Old Testament, is basd on the Hebrew attitude and approach.

Furthermore, Marvin Wilson states that "the Hebrews did not view a life of true piety and godliness as an impersonal relationship to a structure of thought, but as a personal relationship renewed each day with the living God. Its true locus was not found in an array of dogmas or cultic regulations, but in the response of one's whole person in love and total obedience to the Creator." -Our Father Abraham, Pp. 320

This is why I call myself first a follower of Jesus Christ, then a Christian, etc. Thinking in this way helps me to cut the links from the chains that would otherwise bind me to institutionalized religion, a religion, albeit, in which I have been raised and formed. Therefore, I believe that truly following Christ must necessarily over-reach Christianity as that institutionalized religion. Da'ath elohim, knowledge of God, can only be vaguely hinted at by systematic theologies and dogmatic creeds, just as any intimate relationship cannot be adequately expressed in words.

The Easter Resurrection Homily of St. John Chrysostom

This classic Paschal or Easter Sermon on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is from Saint John Chrysostom, fifth century early church father and one of the greatest preachers of all time. This homily for Holy Pascha exhorts all, even those who have not kept the Lenten fast, to rejoice and enter into the Easter feast of the resurrection.

Let all Pious men and all lovers of God rejoice in the splendor of this feast; let the wise servants blissfully enter into the joy of their Lord; let those who have borne the burden of Lent now receive their pay, and those who have toiled since the first hour, let them now receive their due reward; let any who came after the third hour be grateful to join in the feast, and those who may have come after the sixth, let them not be afraid of being too late, for the Lord is gracious and He receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him who comes on the eleventh hour as well as to him who has toiled since the first: yes, He has pity on the last and He serves the first; He rewards the one and is generous to the other; he repays the deed and praises the effort.


Come you all: enter into the joy of your Lord. You the first and you the last, receive alike your reward; you rich and you poor, dance together; you sober and you weaklings, celebrate the day; you who have kept the fast and you who have not, rejoice today. The table is richly loaded: enjoy its royal banquet. The calf is a fatted one: let no one go away hungry. All of you enjoy the banquet of faith; all of you receive the riches of his goodness.

Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed; let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shone from the grave; let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free: He has destroyed it by enduring it, He has despoiled Hades by going down into its kingdom, He has angered it by allowing it to taste of his flesh.

When Isaiah foresaw all this, he cried out: "O Hades, you have been angered by encourntering Him in the nether world." Hades is angered because frustrated, it is angered because it has been mocked, it is angered because it has been destroyed, it is angered because it has been reduced to naught, it is angered because it is now captive. It seized a body, and lo! it discovered God; it seized earth, and, behold! it encountered heaven; it seized the visible, and was overcome by the invisible.

O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? Christ is risen and life is freed, Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of the dead: for Christ, being risen from the dead, has become the Leader and Reviver of those who had fallen asleep. To Him be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

The 55th Psalm: A Meditation for Good Friday

Good Friday is, of course, the day that we bury Christ, and with Christ, we bury ourselves. It’s not a happy day, but it is a very real day, and by that I mean that, in my belief, it is one of the very few times in the life of the church when the Church is sort of officially honest about who we are, about what we have done and what we have become. We drop any myths about our own righteousness and accept our hypocrisy.

Good Friday is about being broken, it is about falling down and taking ownership of the very real fact that, yes, I really did put Christ on that cross. How do we deal with that, and then move straight on to Easter, with all its rejoicing and celebration and good food? We can do it because we have a God who is alive and who is living within us, not condemning us for our sin, but yet convicting us to bury what is past and to move on into life.

But now, before we get ahead of ourselves and rush on into Easter, let us pause and meditate on those things that have brought us not to Easter, but to Good Friday. I don’t believe that God wants us to obsess over our mistakes, but God does want us to reflect on them, and I can almost hear my mother saying to me, “Go to your room and think about what you’ve done.”

The other day in Morning Prayer, we read together Psalm 55. It was written by King David, possibly during a time when he was dealing with the betrayal of his trusted advisors. But we can almost hear the sound of Jesus’ voice in the Garden of Gethsemane, agonizing over his own betrayal by those whom he loves.

Give ear to my prayer, O God:
do not hide yourself from my supplication.
Attend to me, and answer me;
I am troubled by my complaint.
I am distraught by the noise of my enemy,
Because of the clamour of the wicked.
For they bring trouble upon me,
And in anger they cherish enmity against me.

How often do we think of things from the perspective of Jesus? He came to love us as his own family, he came to teach us how to love Him:

It is not enemies who taunt me –
I could bear that;
It is not adversaries who deal insolently with me –
I could hide from them.
But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend,
With whom I kept pleasant company;
We walked in the house of God with the throng.

At that moment of betrayal, I wonder if David realized that he was speaking with the Lord’s voice to us, because even though this may have been his own expression of pain, is read now as prophecy:

My companions laid hands on a friend
And violated covenant with me
With speech smoother than butter,
But with a heart set on war;
With words that were softer than oil,
But in fact were drawn swords.

King David was in such anguish that he prayed to God to destroy those who had hurt him. Christ, however, prayed to God, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” Amen.