There Is No Condemnation

Romans 8:18-27

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

The majestic 8th chapter of the letter of Paul to the Romans begins with the gospels' astonishing conclusion: "There is therefore now no condemnation." The death sentence hanging over all humanity has been removed for those who are in Jesus Christ. This is a sudden reversal of death's judgment, announce in open court for all to hear. The gavel has come down and found you guilty, thus giving God his due. There is no loophole, no higher court to which one might appeal; the verdict is final. The law is God's terrible and inescapable judgement of the death sentence. (Steven D. Paulson, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol 3, p 230).

The death sentence. Perhaps you have felt the seriousness of that judgement in another setting. One young man, also named Paul, experienced what felt like the death sentence during the final exam of a college course. He was majoring in zoology at college. One semester this young contemporary Paul took a course in the study of birds – ornithology. For the final exam, Paul studied until he had the textbook nearly memorized. He knew his class notes backward and forward. He was eager to take the exam, certain of getting a good grade.

The morning of the exam, Paul took a seat in the front row of the big auditorium where the class was held. Over 100 students were in the class with him. On a table at the front was a row of 10 stuffed birds, each one with a sack covering its body so that only the legs were visible.

The professor announced, "For this test, which counts for 80% of your final grade, I want you to identify each bird up here by its legs, and then discuss its species, natural habitat, and mating patterns. You may begin."

Paul stared at the birds. All the legs looked the same to him. After spending half the exam period in growing frustration as he tried to determine which bird was which, he picked up his exam and threw it on the professor's desk.

"This is ridiculous!" he shouted. "I studied the textbook and my notes all night, and now you're asking me to name these birds by looking at their legs? Forget it!"

The professor picked up the exam booklet and saw that it was blank. "What's your name, young man?"

With that, Paul yanked one leg of his pants up. "Why don't you tell me?"

Paul's response probably didn't earn him a passing grade, although I must admit, I admire his creativity! (story via http://www.earlytorise.com/2011/06/30/cultivate-creativity-to-grow-success/)

I also admire the creativity of this other Paul, the one we know as the Apostle Paul, who writes in our text today: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (v. 1) Really, now?! No condemnation? I think I may safely say there is none among us who is sinless.

I was reminded this week of the story of a preacher was making his rounds on a bicycle, when he came upon a little boy trying to sell a lawn mower.  "How much do you want for the mower?" asked the preacher. 

"I just want enough money to go out and buy me a bicycle." said the little boy. 

After a moment of consideration, the preacher asked, "Will you take my bike in trade for it?" 

The little boy asked if he could try it out first. He told the preacher he hadn't ridden a bicycle in a long time and wasn't sure he could still ride one. 

The preacher told him, "Just keep trying.  It'll come back to you." 

After riding the bike around a little while, the little boy said, "Mister, you've got yourself a deal." 

The preacher took the mower and began to crank it. He pulled on the rope a few times with no response from the mower. The preacher called the little boy over and said, "I can't get this mower to start." 

The little boy said, "That's because you have to cuss at it to get it started." 

The preacher said, "I can't cuss. It's been so long since I became a Christian that I don't even remember how to cuss." 

The little boy looked at him happily and said, "You just keep pulling on that rope. It'll come back to you."

I know I am not sinless. And neither are you. Yet when Paul speaks of sin he is not talking about our usual moral failures such as cussing or forgetting to pray for someone when we said we would do it. Paul speaks of sin as something larger and more pervasive than our individual moral failures. Paul considers sin to be power that resides in the world and in us. So to hear that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus is strangely good news.

Yes, this is very good news in a world that is full of the power of death. Just turn on the TV to the news channel and see the latest carnage in Libya. Or click on chron.com on the web and read about the latest gruesome death scene. Death's power lingers and nips at us all throughout our lives. Just ask any alcoholic about the power of death and if they are honest they will tell you about the living death they know. Ask any parent of a child who is dying from a devastating disease, and your will hear of the power of death to break a heart even before the child's body gives up. Yet, even the terrible power of death is not enough to stop "the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead" (v. 11).

For an alcoholic, there are two choices: the way of death and the way of life. The first step is to admit that we are powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become unmanageable. The second second is to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. The third is to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.

So it is for the Christian. Substitute the word "sin" for "alcohol," and you have the crux of this passage. We are powerless over sin, which will inevitably lead us to death; but in the Spirit we have the possibility of life. Sin is still a daily possibility; God has not eliminated it form this world once and foralall-not yet. However, a life of righteousness is also a possibility now, because of the Spirit's power.

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (v. 1). This freedom does not take us out of our bodies and fly us up into a netherworld beyond the pearly gates. Instead it frees us to live fully in this world, in this mortal body we have. This freedom is ours in Christ. It is the result of the power of God, a power greater than the sum of all the powers.

--
The Rev. Dr. Jonathan L. Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church on July 10. 2011

Freedom, Reliance and Relationship

Psalm 145:8-14

The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.

All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you.

They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and tell of your power,

to make known to all people your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds.

The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed.

A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules; so, the husband flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife making the trip the next day. The husband checked into the hotel.

There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an email to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without realizing, sent the email.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. She decided to check her email expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she screamed and fainted. Her son rushed into the room, found her on the floor, and saw the computer screen, which read:

To: My Loving Wife.

I have Arrived. I'll bet you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now, and you can send emails. Everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then. P.S. Sure is hot down here!!!!

Well, it sure is hot down here in Houston on this 4th of July weekend as we worship God in this cool sanctuary. Whether expressed as warm and clappy or cool and restrained, worship has always seemed exciting to me. Whether it is clap happy worship with hands held high and singing in an unknown language or the more dignified, orderly service we practice here, worship has always been life giving to me. I remember as a small child standing up in on the pew by my parents waving my hands up and down in imitation of the music director who was directing the hymn we were singing. I was full of unselfconscious joy. Of course, the other worshipers, including my parents, found that a bit distracting and so it was brought to a swift end.

Worship has been life giving to me. I have found it a way to connect myself to a greater cause, a higher power, and the rest of humanity. Worship has never been and end to a means but rather an end in itself. We don't worship just to energized to go out and serve God in the world. We worship also because worship is the right thing to do as a human being. It is a visible expression of our metaphysical relationship to the cosmos. Worship proclaims that we belong on this earth. Worship reminds us that this earth is not our final destination. Just as Jesus was said to be like a fox in that he had nowhere in particular to lay his head at night, we are poor, wayfaring strangers, traveling through this world of woe.

Worship is serious business interspersed with comic moments.

Psalm 45, found at the end of the Davidic collection, is the only one of the psalms given the clear title of "Praise." It also appears in teh Jewish prayer book mor than any other psalm. It has been an important part of the liturgy of God's people down through the ages. This Psalm expresses the beliefs of the worshipping community.

Rabbi Poupko of Chicago describes Psalm 145 as the "prayer of all prayers" and the "entry way to the Psalms," to be prayed three times each day by the devout. According to the Talmud, "Everyone who repetat the Thillh of David thrivce a day may be sure that he is a child of the world to come' (Berakot, 4b quoted by Robert A. Cathey in Feasting on the Word:Year A, Vol 3, 200.

Our session has been discussing Reggie McNeal's book Missional Renaissance. One of the critiques of the book is that it seems to downplay one of our essential tenets as Presbyterians. We believe one of the primary reasons the church exists is to worship God. Therefore, we may be a fully functioning and effective church if all we do is worship God and preach the Word from scripture in a relevant and appropriate manner. Yes, we are blessed to bless others, as McNeal points out, and we are also blessed to bless God. Our worship is a way of blessing the One Higher Power who blesses us. We are giving back to the Great Giver. We are reaching out to the one who picks us up when we fall down.

Yes, we do fall down. There is no denying it. We fall behind on our rent or our car payment or our child support. We fall behind in paying our pledge to the church. We fall in other ways. Sometimes, we literally fall down and break a hip. That may lead to further changes such as finding ourselves laying in a hospital bed after reconstructive surgery or sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing. We fall down.

As the Apostle Paul puts it: "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." (Romans 7:15) With the same tongue and lips we both praise God and curse God. We are up and down, happy and sad, hopeful and full of despair. Life is messy. The road ahead is never clear. There are always options. Choices have to be made.

In the movies and in real life in places of war and violent upheaval, people fall down when they get shot. They are wounded, sometimes fatally wounded. We fall down on our knees when we pray. We lose our balance when we fall down. Falling down on our knees is an appropriate symbolical posture for prayer. We fall down because we are wounded spiritually, morally, financially, physically, emotionally. We are wounded so we fall down on our knees to pray.

And it is there, from that position of fallenness, down on our knees in prayer, it is from there that God lifts us up. Yes, what the Psalmist says holds true today just as it did 3,000 years ago, "The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed." (Psalm 145:14) As the great old hymn, Jesus Is All the World to Me, puts it, "When I am sad, He makes me glad, He's my friend."

On this Fourth of July weekend we celebrate our freedom and independence. Yet in this time of great opportunity many of us don't feel very free. Beyond the public controversy over TSA agents groping citizens trying to board airplanes, there is also the issue of private freedom within ourselves. Many of us are not living the lives that we had planned on living. We have trouble making choices. And we wonder if we will ever get to that place where we will finally be happy. Worst of all, when you are free, you have only yourself to blame for being unhappy.

When we were children and had to do what we were told by parents and teachers who just didn't understand us, we knew that if only we could get free of that, we would be okay. The burden of maturity is having to take responsibility for how your life is turning out. Now that we are free to do what we want, where we want, when we want, and with whom we want, there is no one to blame for our problems but ourselves.

Some of us still try to blame others. But the more you listen to someone blame others for their unhappiness the more it sounds like the familiar whining of children. You can blame the office where it is all politics, or the parent who wasn't very loving, or the mythical they who are trying to take something away from you. But this weekend our nation is throwing a big party to proclaim that you are free. The pursuit of happiness is all yours. So if you are still struggling to get the life you want, the freedom battle isn't really out there. It is within your own soul.

Mariette in Ecstasy is a novel by Ron Hansen. The novel begins with Mariette entering a convent to become a nun. Joining this convent has been the goal of her life from the time she was young girl because she wants so much to do the right thing with her life and is convinced that means settling into a devout, regimented life in the convent. But after her arrival, she falls deeply in love with Jesus Christ. She prays differently from the other nuns, focusing not on her prayers but on the one to whom she is praying. She is literally in love with Jesus and develops a relationship with him that is too powerful to be contained by the careful routines of monastic life. She finds joy in what should be hardship. Eventually she even bears Christ's stigmata on her body which is too much for the other nuns. So she is kicked out of the convent for her excesses in piety. The failure is devastating to her; she feels disgraced as she is exiled into the unregimented world.

Thirty years later, she writes a letter back to the convent describing what she has learned about the love of God and freedom. The closing lines of the letter are the closing lines of the novel: "We try to be formed and held and kept by Christ, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kindness floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, 'Surprise me.'" (Taken from an online sermon by Craig Barnes called "The Pursuit of Freedom" preached at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in 2004)

We value worship because it puts us as human beings in our proper place in the world. Worship reminds us that we are creatures who are created and loved by God but we are not the same thing as God. We live in a culture that says our value comes from being self sufficient human beings but our Bible teaches us that our value comes from our mutual reliance upon God. Somewhere between our personal responsibility and our reliance upon God comes a balance that leads to greater joy. If you listen closely this morning, you may hear God's still small voice saying, "Hey, listen, get up off your knees, surprise me."
--
The Rev. Dr. Jonathan L. Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston, TX on July 3, 2011

Called to Bear Witness

Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God. (Luke 24:44-53)

- - -

Two hunters –Stosh and Stan – got a pilot to fly them into the Canadian wilderness, where they managed to bag two big bull moose.

As they were loading the plane to return, the pilot said the plane could take only the hunters, their gear, and one moose.

The hunters objected strongly, saying, "Last year we shot two, and the pilot let us take them both. And he had exactly the same airplane as yours."

Reluctantly the pilot, not wanting to be outdone by another bush pilot, gave in and everything was loaded.

However, even under full power, the little plane couldn't handle the load and went down, crashing in the wooded wilderness.

Somehow, surrounded by the moose, clothing, and sleeping bags, Stosh and Stan survived the crash.

After climbing out of the wreckage, Stosh asked Stan, "Any idea where we are?"

Stan replied, "I think we're pretty close to where we crashed last year."

We Christians are a funny lot. We keep doing the same thing over and over always expecting a different result each time. We keep looking up to heaven trying to get a glimpse of Jesus when he is standing right beside us, even dwelling within us. But we don't look within because we have been trained to look beyond. Jesus is both beyond and within. We have been trained from childhood to emphasize Jesus beyond us and to minimize Jesus within.

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is a Muslim temple and holy site. In the middle of the building is a large rock jutting up from the floor. This is the rock from which Mohammed is said to have ascended into heaven riding on a horse. As I looked at the rock I did have a sense that this was a sacred space. Thousands and thousands of people who have viewed this site with faith give it a sacred presence. Yet I couldn't help but hold back a little smirk that wanted to creep across my face. Frankly, it was hard for me to envision Mohammed riding through the air on the back of a horse.

This mystical ascension into heaven is not unique to the Islamic faith. We have ample examples of it in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament we have Elijah ascending, Ezekiel ascending in the wheel.

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul describes his own mystical experience of ascending into heaven. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, here is how Paul describes what happened to him:

"I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat." (2 Cor 12:1-4, NRSV)

And of course in the New Testament we have Jesus' ascension into heaven. In the gospel story of Jesus' ascension into heaven, we fare better if we focus on the sacred nature of the event and what it teaches us to do than on the physics of how it may or may not have happened. Frankly, it doesn't make physical sense that Jesus blessed his disciples and floated up into the sky. This is a wild claim and there is no way to sugar coat it. Yet beyond the how question which we will never answer is the why question and that is the question we will consider this morning.

Some ancient manuscripts do not have the part about ascending into heaven, they just leave it that Jesus blessed them and left. Yet the ascension of Jesus became one of the essential components of orthodox Christian faith. As the Apostle's Creed says of Jesus, "He was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right of God." Jesus died, was resurrected and ascended. The Ascension comes a symbolic 40 days after crucifixion. This is a symbolic event that doesn't leave us hanging. The message to us disciples is clear. As Jesus said to his disciples so he says to us: "You are witnesses of these things." Look around you and see your mission.

Today we commission some members in mission to Guatemala and Uganda. They will be going to places where the needs are greater than we experience here in this city. Yes, there are pockets of poverty in this city in the Third Ward and elsewhere. But the level of poverty in some parts of Guatemala and Uganda exceeds what we see normally see in this city. I have heard from others who have been to these and similar places that beneath the abject poverty there is a hospitality and a joy and a delight in life that we who live in this wealthy nation would find remarkable. What is the source of joy for those who seem to have so little in the way of material things? Perhaps they may teach us about the different kinds of wealth in this world. There is the wealth of money and material things and then there is the wealth of family relationships and a sense of connection to the land. Often when we go out in mission we find that we are the one being changed and challenged more than the people to whom we hope to minister. We find that we are the ones who are poor in spirit. This is a revelation worth traveling to obtain. Our supportive prayers go with our missionaries as they go out into the world to bear witness to what we have seen in Jesus. As our closing hymn today puts it: "We all are one in mission. We all are on in call. Our varied gifts united by Christ the Lord of all."

We also are in mission in our daily lives, in our homes, where we work and go to school. But sometimes we don't feel like we are performing important mission work. Instead, we feel bloated, lazy, unfocused, and scatter brained. We don't know where God may be and Jesus seems missing in action. Our chances of running into Jesus seem to slim to none and slim is out of town. Perhaps instead of looking up for Jesus we should be looking down. Perhaps instead of looking out for Jesus we should be looking in for Jesus. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says: "If you split a piece of wood, I am there." The point is that Christ is hidden in plain view. We look out for Christ when we should look within for Christ. We gaze up into the sky when we should look at the ground beneath our feet.

The Christ in you doesn't die, it resurrects. The ascension is to a future state of higher consciousness.

You are supposed to ascend. What is keeping you from ascending into heaven? What is keeping you tied down. If Jesus yoke is easy and his burden is light, what has you bound? What keeps you down? What is Prozac are you taking? What are you trying to forget? What are you trying to forget by overeating, drinking too much, working too many hours? What are you avoiding? These are the kinds of questions we must answer on this Ascension Sunday.

There is a story about two mountain hikers who come across a huge grizzly bear. The bear rears up. They figure that the bear is going to make a run for them. One of them reaches down and laces up his shoes. "Why bother?" says the other hiker. "You can't outrun a bear!" The first guy says, "I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you." Is this what Jesus is doing in the Ascension? Is he "running away" from the world? Yes, according to the story, Jesus mission was accomplished and it was time for him to depart from this world. Yet, in another sense, Christ has never left this earth. This theme is taken up in at the beginning of the Book of Acts which provides a more detailed portrait of Jesus Ascension.

When they were together for the last time they asked, "Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?"

He told them, "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business. What you'll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world."

These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there, staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared—in white robes! They said, "You Galileans!—why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly—and mysteriously—as he left." (Acts 1:6-11, The Message)

So now the story has expanded significantly. The disciples are going to get something out of this, the Holy Spirit. Next week we continue this story as we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday.

In today's readings, Jesus blesses his followers, telling them to proclaim repentance and forgiveness in his name. But first they must wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit. His followers return to the temple to worship God. Jesus ascended into heaven. One day, some way, so we will we. No, we won't be riding a horse up into heaven as Mohammed was said to have done. We will not be floating off into the skies as Jesus was said to have done. We will ascend into heaven by doing the daily grind with integrity and persistence. We will ascend into heaven by discovering Christ within us and within every material object.

The ascension is that moment in time when the mystical meets the physical. That moment in time for us is right now. This is the only moment we have. Let's make is a sacred moment. The body of Christ broken for you. The blood of Christ shed for you. Christ is still present and available to us in the ordinary things of life such as bread and grape juice. This is trail mix for the missionaries in our midst. That includes each of us here today. Even you. Jesus last words to his disciples are his present words to us: "You are witnesses of these things."

- - -

-The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas on Ascension of the Lord Sunday, June 5, 2011.

Live in Unity

Psalm 133

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!

It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes.

It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.

Genesis 45:1-15

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, "Send everyone away from me." So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come closer to me." And they came closer. He said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.' And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here." Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

* * *

Joseph was born into the blue blood family of the Old Testament—they were direct descendants of Abraham. They were the first family of God's hope for the salvation of the world. Joseph's father was Jacob and Joseph's mother was Rachel. Joseph had 11 brothers. Have you ever known a large family that had a favorite child? Such was the source of the conflict in Joseph's family. Joseph was his father's favorite son. That fact became painfully obvious to his brothers after their father gave Joseph a beatiful technicolor coat. That coat set Joseph's brothers against him. The brother's envy of Joseph only increased after he told them about a dream he had in which they all bowed down to him as if he was some kind of royalty. Envy is the motivation which led to the brother's crime of first throwing Joseph into a pit and then selling him into slavery and finally telling their father that a wild animal had killed him.

In Genesis chapter 45 we learn that Joseph has grown up to become the virtual ruler of all Egypt, having survived threats to his life and well-being that are familiar to everyone who learned this story in church school. There was a murderous plot by his brothers who then sold Joseph into slavery. There was an attempted seduction by the wife of a powerful Egyptian. There was the royal cupbearer who swore to help Joseph get out of jail but forgot to keep his word.

The story takes place against the backdrop of a famine that has ravaged Egypt and also desolated Palestine, so that Joseph's brothers, in their efforts to find food, have come face-to-face with the brother whom they earlier had sold into slavery. Now Joseph, with one wave of his hand, may now avenge the terrible wrong done to him so long ago by snuffing out the life or the liberty of these trembling sons of Jacob.

But that is not Joseph's way, because that is not God's way, and Joseph is—first, last, and always—God's man (notice v. 8). Joseph's virtual collapse in the presence of his brothers reveals his awareness of God's role in his life as much as it reveals his humanity. Only the Egyptians are meant to be excluded from this catharsis, lest they misinterpret Joseph's tears for weakness.

The emotional energy displayed by Joseph is countered by the awestruck dumbness of the eleven. Are they unable to speak simply because they find this revelation hard to believe, or is it out of terror over what might soon happen to them at the hands of their long-lost but now powerful brother? Probably both, but it is their terror-for-their-lives that Joseph addresses by attempting to calm them (v. 5).

The reason for comfort that Joseph extends has nothing directly to do with his own emotions, although his concern for his father (v. 3) would doubtless have ruled out any violence against his brothers, even if Joseph had been so inclined. His brothers are to be at peace because "God sent me before you to preserve life" (v. 5). Notice that the phrase "God sent me" (or its equivalent) is repeated 3 times (Gen. 45:5, 7, 8). Here we have the whole point of the narrative: behind all the events of Joseph's life, God was at work to bring good out of evil.

As the blood still races with excitement over Joseph's startling self-disclosure, but Joseph pushes forward to other things. After urging the inclusion of their father in this new life, Joseph outlines to the eleven what kind of life it will be. In spite of the five years the famine has still to run, theirs will be a time of peace and plenty under Joseph's personal protection.

Their families, including children and grandchildren, will be secure, even their flocks and herds. Only then, after Joseph has hugged and kissed them all, are the brothers' tongues unlocked and they begin to talk to him (v. 15).

It is as difficult for us as it was for Joseph and his brothers to believe that God is at work even in the dark and destructive moments of life. One of the great struggles of faith is that, no matter how hard one tries, it simply is not possible to identify grace or redemption in so many human experiences. Sometimes it seems that God is not there in the midst of our suffering and defeat. But the Joseph stories lead us to a different conclusion, which is that, in spite of the awful tragedies from which God seems absent, the divine economy is managed by a caring friend and will ultimately have a friend's way.

So, in the Joseph stories, Joseph is an example of what the grace of God can do in human life: transform a curse into a blessing. But Joseph is also more—he is a metaphor for God: the One who has every reason to reject a wayward human family, but who instead loves them even to the point of participating in their suffering.

This story could have been written a dozen ways. What it shows us is an honest picture of how hard it is to mend what is broken—something we all know from much experience. We know what betrayal feels like: the alcoholic parent who disappoints the family time and time again; spouses who find that love cannot withstand the pressures of life; siblings (like these) or dear friends who abandon a beloved or a friend when the need is greatest. We have been betrayed and we have betrayed others.
That is the human reality.

This story could seem almost naïve. We could be tempted to dismiss it as a fairy tale, except for the fact that it is God's story. I said that Genesis is the book of beginnings. You may remember that in the beginning, there was a family—Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. The first story of this family is that Cain murders Abel. It is no accident, I think, that Genesis ends with a story of attempted murder and miraculous reconciliation. The text does not say so explicitly, but I think it is clear: this is God's work. Yes, God planned to save Israel from famine. But God also planned to save the family, to mend what was broken.

Jesus stated flatly, "I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw everyone to me" (John 12:32). What that means is that, if you allow that magnet of the cross to draw you toward it, you are going to find yourself standing shoulder to shoulder with some people you had not anticipated having to stand that close to.

If you let this centripetal force work on you, you are also going to discover how much more joy there is in unity than there is in disunity, how much more encouragement and support there is in fellowship than there is in isolation, how much more security there is in cooperation than there is in conflict. You are going to understand what the writer of Psalm 133 meant when he exclaimed:

How wonderful it is, how pleasant, for God's people to live together in harmony!

- - -

The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church on May 29, 2011.

Friendship with God

Sermon Text: Psalm 23

Among Christians, Psalm 23 is perhaps the best known and most beloved of the entire Hebrew Bible. It has been recited at funerals countless times and particularly in the King James Version with its antiquated usage of "maketh" and "leadeth" and "preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." That image of sitting down at table with our enemies reminds me of Jesus' admonition to "love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you."

Sitting down at the dinner table to eat has become more problematic to my family in the past week. We have changed out diet to explore whether my daughter Jennifer and I have Celiac's Disease. This is a condition in which one's body has an auto-immune reaction against gluten which is a protein found in wheat products. Since much of what we eat contains some sort of wheat we are required to read the ingredients label on every food product. If a product contains wheat we must just say no or otherwise deal with uncomfortable and damaging symptoms. So we are going gluten free in our diet and will see if that makes a difference in our quality of life.

We have a similar challenge in the Christian life and that is to ingest healthy spiritual food. As the scripture says, "Whatsoever things are true, pure, and good, if there be any honor, let your mind dwell on these things." I'm afraid if we followed that advice that would cut out most of the media we ingest from the TV to YouTube. Perhaps in our spiritual lives we should try a fruit only diet and only take into our spiritual bodies the fruit of spirit: Peace, love, joy, gentleness, kindness and self control. That would bring healing to our spiritual bodies.

The key to our spiritual health is found in the first verse of Psalm 23 which says: "The LORD is my shepherd." The key to our spiritual health is our friendship with the LORD, our shepherd. As the Psalmist says, "The Lord God is our sun and shield, He gives strength and glory. No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." We need a spiritual guide and protector because as another secular song puts it: "It ain't easy to get to heaven when you're going down."

When you walk through a grocery store looking at the food items from the perspective of a person with Celiac's Disease, it's like walking through a minefield. There are so many opportunities to hurt yourself. One wrong purchase, even a seemingly healthy food like yogurt may contain wheat as a filler, and you lose the battle for your physical health.

We face a similar struggle in our spiritual lives. As we navigate the minefield of choices in our daily lives there are plenteous opportunities for disaster. We may get burned out from triangulated relationships or we may get programmed by the media we consume. As Christians we are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It takes a lot of energy to maintain our spiritual lives. Our trouble arises when we neglect our friendship with the LORD, our good shepherd. As long as we are growing in our friendship with God we will find there is nothing we lack and there is nothing we need.

Friendship with the LORD, whom Psalm 23 calls our Shepherd, develops until following God's leadership becomes second nature. We luxuriate in the abundance of spiritual sustenance God's provides. We freely eat the bread of heaven and drink the cup of eternal salvation. We can relax and be ourselves, secure in our friendship with God. Even our peculiarities and blemishes do not know diminish the love of our Divine Shepherd. We have nothing to hide and nothing to fear. We are spiritually well fed, watered, and satisfied.

We sleep well at night and awaken refreshed and ready for further service. When our spiritual energy feels depleted, we know how to tap into God's power through prayer, study, and silence. Difficult choices demand our attention but we intuitively know what to do and how and when. The Spirit nudges us to contact someone we haven't seen in months and we find their dog just died and they needed some loving support at that moment. A relational knot that has been tied for years seems to dissolve and unravel before our very eyes. Miracles really do happen when we are following the Good Shepherd along the right path. We move in the flow of the Spirit and God gets all the glory.

Everything is fine and dandy until we enter the dark valley. We see the shadow of death on the canyon walls and our knees feel weak. We stand beside another hospital bed and pray with a fearful family facing late stage cancer. Or perhaps we are the one laying in the hospital bed, learning for the first time the feeling of vulnerability and lack of control that comes with the term "hospital patient." Or perhaps we are staring into the pit of financial ruin or the destruction of a long term relationship. Even in such desperate circumstances, we fear no evil. As Martin Luther wrote of the evil one, "One little word shall fell him." (Hymn: "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God")

Fear is the opposite of love. Our friendship with God is not based on fear. In fact, many of us must overcome fear of God as we begin our friendship with God. When we overcome our fear of God and enter into friendship with God, no other fear may conquer us. We become fearless with God at our side. We trust God. We have experienced God's discipline and support. We know God will defend us from all evil. The Good Shepherd imparts courage and comfort in times of need.

God sets a table before us as our enemies gaze and glisten. We feast without worry knowing our friend , the Good Shepherd, has our back. That rod and staff is God's big stick and God knows how to use it in our defense. From this place of friendship with God, we are able to defend the friendless, welcome the stranger, and minister to the sick and dying. Safe in God's loving embrace, we offer a supportive shoulder for others to cry on. Having been anointed with God's Holy Spirit, we have plenty of Spirit to share with others. The life force inside us overflows the boundaries of our energetic field and embraces all whom we encounter.

When wolves and robber barons discover God has our back they lose interest in pursuing us and seek out easier targets. We are then pursued by goodness, mercy, and love. As the Apostle Paul put it: "If God be for us, who can stand against us?" Our ultimate security is good for this life and the life to come. Again, Paul says, "Who shall separate us from the love of God? For whether we live or whether we die we belong to the LORD." Our friendship with Christ, the Good Shepherd, provides the foundation for spiritual health, abundance, sustenance, and help, in this life and in the life to come.

The Episcopal spiritual director Margaret Guenther counsels, "When in doubt, I always assume God is at work." That is good counsel. When you are struggling or doubting or at the end of your rope or wondering "Lord, I'm doing all I can here, where on earth are you!" it is a good bet to trust that God indeed is at work. In ways you may not yet perceive or understand. But in ways you can count on are gracious to save and love you.

Life is hard, but God is good. We are going to have bumps and disappointments and even years of barrenness. Certainly death awaits us all. But if Jesus conquered death, then surely he can conquer everything else. He became like us so we could become like him—close to God, innocent, forgiving, compassionate, loving, and living.

Live with faith into that truth. Hang tough while being tender. Trust God to see you through it all. Trust God to be your Good Shepherd whose love shall not fail.

This week I came across a story that reflects this hope in the midst of pain and suffering and indeed includes images of the shadow of death. Here, death is an adversary, but finally there is a table set before them in the face of this enemy. The image of death as an enemy is so well described in A Small Good Thing by Raymond Carver. In this story, Ann orders a birthday cake from a baker for her son Scotty. Before the birthday arrives, Scotty is struck by a car as he rides his bicycle. At first it appears to be nothing, but suddenly he slips into a coma and is in the hospital. Ann and the father Howard await their son's fate as they keep vigil with other parents. Ann and Howard take turns going home to shower, rest, and eat. When they do, they receive several messages on the answering machine from a strange man saying such things as "Have you forgotten Scotty?" It is the baker, who assumes that they are yet another customer who has not picked up a cake and treated him unfairly. He does not identify himself, and the couple wonders, who could be so cruel? Scotty dies and the parents must return home in sorrow and pain. There is another message, but this time Ann recognizes who it is.

At four in the morning they go to the bakery to confront him. Violence hangs in the air. They bang on the door and he lets them in but as he accesses the situation he picks up a rolling pin to protect himself. Only when Ann says, "My son is dead" does the baker realize what he has done. He is left humble and repentant, confessing that he is bitter from watching other happy families celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, taking them for granted, while he and his wife could not have children. He begs forgiveness on that early morning with the smell of warm bread and coffee hanging in the air. He asks them to sit at the table and he serves them warm cinnamon rolls and coffee. "You probably need to eat something," the baker said. "I hope you'll eat some of my hot rolls. You have to eat and keep going. Eating is a small, good thing in a time like this," he said. He served them and they shared their stories. Carver concludes with these words: "Smell this," the baker said, breaking open a dark loaf. "It's a heavy bread, but rich." They listened to him… They talked on into the early morning, the high, pale cast of light in the windows, and they did not think of leaving." (Raymond Carver: Collected Stories, The Library of America, New York, NY, 2009, 424 -425.) Here, in the early morning hours, this former enemy, the baker, set a table before them in the face of a foe with which we must all eventually struggle, namely, the shadow of death. Warm cinnamon rolls and coffee, bread and wine, a table of grace.

As Psalm 23 in the King James Version phrases it: "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, my cup overfloweth. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." We are invited to feast with our Divine Friend even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

No wonder Jesus dined with his disciples every day. They broke bread and drank wine. They did this because they were human. They did this because they were friends. Friendship with God is our incredible invitation. We have been summoned to the feast of life where we may dine with our Divine host and our friend, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Are you hungry? Let's eat.

True Colors

Text: 1 Peter 1:17-23

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

- - -

What a week this was in the marketplace! Gold was down 7% in 3 days and a silver ETF called ZSL was down 50% in just 5 days. It is amazing how material objects such as gold and silver coins that you get see with your eyes and hold with hands and feel against your skin, can lose half their value in one week. This is a current example of what our text refers to as "perishable things like silver or gold." When it comes to real life, the really important things in life, what matters is our soul's ultimate destiny and how well we love those people who are riding shot-gun with us on this unpredictable journey called life.

The Bible says we were not ransomed from our futile ways with perishable things like silver or gold. Instead, we are ransomed through the sacrifice of Christ. That is an important point. Yet there are many churches that focus almost exclusively on personal salvation through faith in Christ. The call to repentance rings loud and clear each Sunday from the pulpit. The preacher seems unaware that 98% of the listeners are already there, already eternally secure through faith in Christ. So what? What is next? What comes after our assurance of salvation through Christ? Our reading answers that question by saying the next step, after salvation, is to "love another deeply from the heart."

We speak of love so often in the church and I sometimes wonder if we know what we mean. Our English word "love" carries so many meanings from friendship to lust. Our Epistle today speaks of love as deep and genuine. The literal Greek translation of deep and genuine would be "not hypocritical" and "not feigned." The Buddhists differentiate between love and compassion. Perhaps they may help us here. Buddhists describe love as wanting others to be happy. Love is characterized by unselfish interest in others welfare.

Similar, but distinct, from love is the Buddhist concept of compassion. Compassion is wanting others to be free from suffering. Compassion is not sentimentality. The opposite of compassion is cruelty. Imagine a person being tortured and you will see the opposite of compassion. The Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, has a special word for love. It is called chesed, which means loving kindness. Chesed is sort of a conjunction between the Buddhist words love and compassion. Chesed is an active verb that implies we will do something for one another beyond thinking good thoughts. We will take action on behalf of one another. I know you have that kind of love for one another because I have seen it in action. I have seen you take care of one another physically, emotionally, financially, mentally, and spiritually. I see it in the funeral luncheons that we provide for families who have just walked out of this sanctuary still in shock from sitting through a memorial service in memory of their mother or another loved one. The family of Lee Shoemake will have that experience this Tuesday at 11:30 am in this sanctuary. After the service they will walk across the courtyard into McPhail Hall for a reception featuring some finger foods and punch, some hugs and smiles and yes, even some laughter.

Jesus said the greatest commandment from the Hebrew Bible is that we are to love God with all our heart, all our mind and all our strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves. I have witnessed you loving one another and having compassion for one another with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength. We are living out this text in the life of this congregation.

We need that kind of support from one another especially in times of sorrow. We need to be there for one another because according to our text we holy resident aliens. This journey by faith motif has deep Biblical roots all the way back to Father Abraham who journeyed by faith from his home in Ur, modern day Iraq, to Egypt. Along the way he became the father of Isaac, father of the Hebrew people, the people of Israel. He also became the father of Ismael, the father of the Arabic peoples who eventually would follow the Prophet Mohammed. The image of the wandering pilgrim goes all the way back into the deep roots of our faith history, as Abraham says, "My father was a wandering Aramean …" We are pilgrims in this land. I've always loved that old classic book called The Pilgrim's Progress. It presents the Christian life as a journey through rough terrain with challenge after challenge and grace upon grace. As the old gospel song puts it, we are poor, wayfaring strangers, traveling through this world of woe.

That image of holy resident aliens may have felt more right to the initial readers of 1 Peter in the generation after Jesus and Paul. They faced trials and tribulations that included physical endangerment. If one of their Christian brothers or sisters were to betray them the dire consequences could include death. So their love for one another had to be real and their trust level had to be extraordinarily high. What Ben Franklin said to John Hancock under threat of persecution for signing the American Declaration of Independence, could also have been said about the first Christian readers of 1 Peter: "We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." I wonder if that is still true for us today and if so, how? After all, we live in a land of religious pluralism where churches such as ours proudly study other faith traditions. There seems to be no imminent threat to our health or livelihood due to our Christian faith. Even so, I still believe there is a place for what Augustine called a "single pilgrim band."

Augustine's City of God admonishes us to take delight in learning and to carry the burden of charity. Augustine would challenge us all to live as contemplatives who delight in learning and balance that with action by carrying the burden of charity. After all, balance is the key in this pilgrim journey. Balance is the vehicle that gets us from here to there. We must balance our physical and spiritual nature, our minds and our bodies, our hearts and our heads. The Christian life is all about balance. Sometimes we get out of balance when we live upright lives but are not willing to take the next step which is to return good for evil and blessing for slander. When we take the extra step the light really shines through and we may draw people to Christ by being Christ-like. God calls us to live faith filled lives as resident aliens of an unbelieving world. Even harder, God calls us to live as brothers and sisters to those in our congregation, in our faith community. Like Christ, we are to live holy lives in an unholy world.

Let's be holy as Christ, the lamb of God, is holy. Let's be courageous as Christ, the Lamb of God, was courageous. Let's be willing to sacrifice for others, as Christ, the Lamb of God, was willing to sacrifice himself for us. Let's demonstrate by our actions the love for others we profess with our mouths. Let be what we are. Confirmands, that is all we expect of you. Be what you are. People of God, that is all God expects of any of us. Be what you are. At times it seems impossible but we know that when we set our intention on being holy God will meet us more than halfway and take us the rest of the way. We are indeed pilgrims in this unholy land. We are merely passing through. Blessed are those who realize the transient nature of existence even in their youth, for they are on the holy road to wisdom. At times the way is rough and steep. Yet beauteous fields lie just before us. Where God's redeemed, their vigils keep. We're going there to see our mother, she said she'd meet us when we come. We're only going over Jordan. We're only going ... over home.

Cyndi Lauper sang a hit song in the 1980s called True Colors.

I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful,
Like a rainbow

Silver is not our true color and neither is gold. Some of you saw our true colors when you gave blood in the Blood Drive this morning. Others of you are wearing our true color in the form of a carnation in honor of Mother's Day. Red is our true color. The blood of Christ, shed for you. As our text today puts it:

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. (1 Peter 1:17-23, selected verses)

Red is the color of the liquid of life in all God's creatures. When we dig deeper into the nature of reality we discovery red is our true color, the color of our salvation and the symbol of our love for one another. In these perilous times, let's stick together, or separately we will hang.

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The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church on May 8, 2011.

Doubtful Peace

Sermon Text: John 20:19-31

The familiar story of Doubting Thomas takes on new meaning when viewed in light of the Docetic theology of First Century Christianity. Christian Docetics were Gnostics who believed Jesus was not human at all. He was 100% divine. That is why he was able to do the superhuman things and miracles. Death couldn't hurt him. The word "docetism" comes from the Greek δοκέω - dokeō, "to seem". This is the belief that Jesus was a pure spirit who only seemed or appeared to be human. Since Jesus did not have a physical body then of course he could not die. Therefore, Docetics view the crucifixion of Christ as symbolic and not actual.

The latest research says Docetic theology was probably more widespread in the early church than has been known. At one time it was probably the majority view. So let's examine today's text within the historical and theological framework of Docetism as represented by Thomas. (For a brief sketch of the history of Gnosticism see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Gnosticism)

Doubt is not the opposite of faith, certainty is. Because whatever you are certain about, you don't need faith, you don't need hope. Thus, Kahlil Gibran says, "Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother." Maybe that's why Thomas is also known as Jude Thomas or Judas Didymus Thomas (Thomas means twin in Aramaic, as does Didymus in Greek.) Some say Thomas was the twin brother of Jesus. That is true symbolically. Jesus represents faith and Thomas represents doubt. Thomas teaches us doubt is nothing to be ashamed about. Doubt is saying that you are not certain about something. If you are certain of something then you don't need faith for something that you already know.

With this background let's look at the story of Doubting Thomas as related in the 20^th chapter of the Gospel According to John. It happened in the evening of the first day of the week. The doors where the disciples met were locked for fear that they may face the same fate as Jesus did. Then Jesus came and stood among them. Jesus is ever coming to where WE are. He does not wait for us to come to him. Here is how we phrase it on our reformed faith: "God takes the initiative in human salvation." God comes down to us. Jesus very name, Emmanuel - God with us, reminds that we did not ascend into heaven to reach God but God came down to where we are on planet earth. The Docetics would agree that God came to us in Jesus but they would disagree that Jesus came in physical form.

Notice the first thing the risen Christ says to his forlorn disciples: "Peace be with you." His disciples needed peace. They had none. They were worried to death. They feared for their lives. So no wonder then the disciples REJOICED when Jesus appeared to them! It was a happy reunion indeed. We may imagine many tears of joy were shed. Hugs were had. Everything was going to be okay. The disciples could now relax. The worst was over.

Yet, this would be no recess in the middle of a campaign. Jesus is quick to give the next assignment to the disciples: "As Father has sent me so I send you." What a daunting task. The disciples are to be sent into the world as the Father sent Jesus. So maybe they are NOT off the hook then. If they are to be sent as Jesus was sent they too may be like the foxes who have no place to lay their head at night. They also may face persecution and opposition as did Jesus. Soon the party spirit was replaced by a sobering awareness that they still had an incredibly daunting task before them.

Yet, once again, Jesus does not leave the disciples alone. He does not send them out unequipped. Rather, He breathed on them said: "Receive the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit will be to them the power of God to accomplish their work.

Jesus says: "If you receive the sins of anyone they are forgiven but if you retain the sins of anyone they are retained." So now they have been happily surprised, soberly challenged to go out and bear witness in the world, and empowered and equipped by the Holy Spirit. What an incredible come back! What an incredible response to the inadequacy and fear they had felt. The disciples could hardly believe the incredible way things suddenly turned around when Jesus appeared.

And just at this point of greatest excitement, we are brought right back down to earth. There is always someone there who is ready to rain on everyone's parade. In this case, that person's name was Thomas. You see, Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

As a Docetic, Thomas did not doubt Jesus could be resurrected. He couldn't buy the idea that Jesus could have been killed. He doubted the crucifixion. That is why he would not believe unless he could see the mark of the nails in Jesus hands, and put his finger in the mark of the nails and his hand in his side. Thomas required proof that Jesus had been killed not that he was now alive. There is some level at which all of us are a little Docetic. We prefer the paintings of Jesus sitting on top of the world. We can relate to the Cosmic Christ who sits at the right hand of God in heaven. We are not entirely comfortable thinking of Jesus as a real human being who lived in a particular place at a particular time and who sweated and snored like the rest of us.

Back to the story of Doubting Thomas. A week later, the disciples and Thomas are in a house when Jesus came and stood among them and said the same thing he said the last time: "Peace be with you." Notice once again although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them. That kind of dramatic entrance may have grabbed Thomas's attention. Jesus did not shirk away from Thomas. He was not dumbfounded by the doubt. He approached Thomas directly and challenged him saying: "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" His doubt was replaced by belief when he was confronted by the overwhelming physical evidence that Jesus had really and truly been crucified and died.

In addition to finding the Lord, Thomas also found a community to which he could belong. He belonged to that troubled band of disciples even though his faith at times wavered. And for that, he could thank Jesus. Some of us know the feeling. Whatever else this church called St. John's may mean to you I imagine it also means community. It means belonging to a group of people who know you as you really are rather than as you like to appear to be. The church is and should be a kind of "third place" - not home, not work, but a third place - where, like they put it in the title song of the sitcom Cheers, "Everyone knows your name." We make room for those who have different views than our own. That is an appealing feature of our faith community. Let us continue to be a church that accepts one another as people and Christians even when we do not agree on every social and religious issue.

We need the challenge and affirmation of our faith community for our spiritual development even more because we don't get the kind of evidence Thomas required. We do not get to reach out our hand and put it in the risen Christ's side. We don't get to put our finger there and see his hands. Our faith is based on a written document, an oral history, our teachers and mentors, our own personal experience, our worship and fellowship in the church. So Jesus says to us: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

Our gospel reading ends with this interesting note: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name." Notice that these gospel stories are not written so that we may have certainty. They are written so that we may come to believe in Jesus and so have life.

We may grow in our experience of eternal life in this lifetime. Listen to the advice of Jesus as quoted in the Gospel of Thomas, saying three, where Jesus says:

...the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty.

Thomas gives us permission to look inside ourselves and explore the contours of our inner life and admit what we find. Inside of ourselves we find fields of faith and domains of doubt. This gospel story suggests that is what God invites us to do. Rather than face condemnation, God welcomes our questions, our uncertainty, our doubt.

According to the gospels, Thomas, the Doubter, is the only person who was allowed to touch the risen Christ. This privilege was not even granted to Mary Magdelene when encountered the risen Christ in his former tomb. Jesus specifically told her not to touch him at that time. Yet, he invites the questioning touch of Thomas. Thomas, called by some the Twin Brother of Jesus, perhaps a Gnostic, a Docetic, a Doubter, you touched the risen Christ. Thank you for teaching us that God welcomes our questions – even the ones no one else asks. Give us some of your doubtful peace, brother Thomas, share with us some of the peace that Christ gave to you.

- - -
The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas on May 1, 2011.

New Life Now

Text: Luke24:13-35

I recently read an inspiring book called Glimpses of Eternity by Raymond Moody, MD. Glimpses of Eternity is about 'shared death experiences' - stories of deathbed moments when entire families may see a surreal light or watch as the room shape shifts. Others tell of seeing a film like review of a loved one's life and learning things that they could never have known otherwise.

One of the book's stories is about a shared death experience of twins. Over their lives they had shared some physic experiences. But what happened when his brother died went beyond anything the surviving twin had ever known.

He and his brother were identical twins and always felt linked. They did things like call their parents at the same time from different locations, and more than once they selected the same card for their mother on her birthday or Mother's Day. Sometimes they even sensed when something had happened to the other, whether it was good or bad. They were very close.

One weekend his twin brother drove with friends to another state for a high-school football game. On the day he was returning, the other twin was lying on the couch watching sports when he suddenly had the sensation of leaving his body and moving toward a bright light. As this happened he flashed back on events that had taken place with his twin brother. He relived several events from their childhood, including some things that were so insignificant that he had forgotten them. These were all memory images, but none of them were daydreams or the same as sleeping dreams. They were so vivid that he really thought he was reliving them.

The young man had no idea how long the episode lasted, but when it was over he found himself back in his body and deeply disturbed. He immediately told his mother what had taken place and sat upon the couch trying to relax. About an hour later, he said, his mother received a telephone call from the police in the other state that her son had been killed in an automobile accident.

Such stories would have met with resistance and doubt from me when I was younger and wiser. Now, I'm more open minded, although I try not to be so open minded that my brains fall out. So now I wonder if we may call the resurrection experience of Peter and the women on Easter day as a shared resurrection story. You remember how it went. The women went to Jesus tomb on Easter Sunday and his dead body was not in the tomb. An angel appeared to them and said Jesus had arisen. Another shared resurrection experience happened with several of the disciples when Jesus appeared on the shore of the Sea of Galilee cooking breakfast for his disciples over an open fire. According to the Gospels, this happened after Jesus resurrection.

Such strange and wonderful stories stretch our scientific view of reality and so does our gospel reading this morning. This story takes place on the first Easter Sunday, three days after Jesus had been crucified. Like Moody's stories of shared death experiences, these Gospel stories are about a spiritual reality beyond physical existence.

Our story today from Luke's Gospel tells about another shared resurrection experience. Here is how Eugene Peterson translates the story in The Message.

Two disciples were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was.

He asked, "What's this you're discussing so intently as you walk along?"

They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, "Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn't heard what's happened during the last few days?"

He said, "What has happened?"

They said, "The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. Then our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. And we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened. But now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb and couldn't find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn't see Jesus."

Then he said to them, "So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can't you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don't you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?" Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.

They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on but they pressed him: "Stay and have supper with us. It's nearly evening; the day is done." So he went in with them. And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared.

 Back and forth they talked. "Didn't we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?"

They didn't waste a minute. They were up and on their way back to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and their friends gathered together, talking away: "It's really happened! The Master has been raised up—Simon saw him!"

Then the two went over everything that happened on the road and how they recognized him when he broke the bread. (Luke 24:13-31, The Message)

This is a story about Jesus after he had died. It is a post resurrection story. It challenges our usually depressive attitude toward death. Henry Van Dyke has a pointed poem about the dying experience. It too challenges our depressive view of death. Here is how Van Dyke views death.

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says:

"There, she is gone!" There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

So dying is a good bye and also a hello. We say good bye to those left behind on earth and we say hello to those who have preceded us into the next life. According to Moody, our deceased family members come to get us and take us home when we die. We are no more alone in death than we are at birth. The Apostle Paul put it another way: "Whether we live or whether we die we belong to the Lord." Let's bear that in mind on Easter Sunday and throughout this Easter season. Some of you have shared with me your own near death experience or a shared death experience and I invite any others who like to share their stories with me. I'll keep it confidential if you wish.

The great relief we experience in our Reformed Theology is a belief that God will take care of us after this life. Knowing that our afterlife is secure, we freely respond to God's love by living a new life now, during this life. And that is where we return to our text for the rest of the story.

Jesus had revealed himself to the disciples he accompanied on the road to Emmaus. When they were breaking bread with him their eyes were opened and they recognized this was Jesus. Then Jesus disappeared. The disciples had to process this experience. Back and forth they talked. "Didn't we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?"

Then they took action. They didn't waste a minute. They were up and on their way back to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and their friends gathered together, talking away: "It's really happened! The Master has been raised up—Simon saw him!"

Then the two went over everything that happened on the road and how they recognized him when he broke the bread. (Luke 24:32-35, The Message)

The question for us this Easter morning is whether we will recognize Jesus when he appears to us. He may appear in any number of ways. Jesus may appear to us in the breaking of the bread as he did to these disciples, or through a song on the radio, a YouTube video, a conversation with a friend or family member, a hymn, a sermon, or the sound of a birdsong in the morning. Our challenge and opportunity this Easter season is to attune our spiritual eyes to perceive the risen Christ when he appears to us and to attune our spiritual ears to such a spiritual frequency that when Christ speaks to us we hear what he is saying. Don't expect to see or hear Christ in his resurrected body. That is not likely to happen. But then again, according to our text today, we never know how Christ may appear to us. Sometimes, he comes as a stranger and reveals himself as a friend.

The deepest meaning behind the Easter text is that it's not about there and then but it's about here and now. Every soul will eventually burst through the tomb of an earthly body and soar to new life with God. That is the meaning of Jesus' words to the thief: "Today you will be with me in paradise." We have within us the door to translate into a new realm of being within this lifetime. Eternity begins now. Now is the only time it may ever possibility begin. "Eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it entered into the heart of man the glory that is about to be revealed." (2 Timothy 4:11)

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The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas on Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011.

Power in the Blood

Text: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

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Although I've seen a few, I usually avoid scary movies. I avoid the gratuitously bloody ones. I somehow made it through the movie "Jaws" when I was 13 years old and "The Exorcist" when I was 16 years old but that's. Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" foreshadowed the slasher films that would come thereafter but I never ventured beyond Psycho in that film genre. Well, I guess I did watch "Alien" and "Silence of the Lambs" but I never saw "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or any of the 11 movies in the whole Friday the 13th series now. All with lots of blood.

So if you're wondering why I'd be talking about bloody movies on this Holy Thursday, it's because the scripture passages for this night seem particularly bloody. Even those of us who don't care for blood and gore find ourselves hearing again stories with quite a bit of blood-spattering action.

If we weren't so numbed by the familiarity of the Passover story, if we didn't know the story of Jesus' torture so well, then we might be quite horrified. Imagine telling someone who doesn't know anything about God – someone who has never heard these stories before – that our loving Creator long, long ago saved the children of Israel by killing every firstborn in Egypt, innocent people and not-so-innocent people – from the great Pharaoh to the lowly prisoner languishing in his prison cell to the cows in the field — unless . . . you lived in a home where lamb's blood had been smeared on the doorposts and lintels. (Exodus 12:29) Imagine telling that story to someone for the first time.

When the Egyptians arose before dawn that morning after that first Passover, there were screams and cries from every single residence and stable "for there was not a house without someone dead." (Exodus 12:30)

This was the last of the infamous ten plagues. You might remember that the plagues started with blood when the River Nile became red with hemoglobin. (Exodus 7:19-24) And the plagues ended with blood, as it was smeared blood on the door frame with a bunch of hyssop - a wild bush used for sprinkling liquids in religious rituals - that very first Passover. (See Lev. 14:4 & Numbers 19:6)

And blood factored into this story long before the exodus. At one point, when Moses is returning to Egypt to help bring the children of Israel out of slavery, Moses was apparently attacked by the Lord who tried to kill him and his wife, Zipporah, took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, "Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!" (Exodus 4:24-26) And so he was.

As Christians, we don't sing "the blood hymns" much anymore. At least Presbyterians don't.

There was a time when churches everywhere loved the Blood Hymns. Does anyone here remember There's a Blest Fountain of Blood?

There is a blessed fount of blood,

It flows from Jesus' side;

And I have plunged my guilty soul

Beneath its cleansing tide. (Lyrics by Daniel O. Teasley, 1911)

Picture yourself literally plunging your soul into a tide of Jesus' blood. It makes for a very earthy relationship with our Savior, doesn't it?

Or how about this one:

Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?

Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?

Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? (Lyrics by Elisha A. Hoffman, 1878)

Or this one from 1772 which was popular at First Baptist Church of Morton, Mississippi, where I was reared:

There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel's veins,

And sinners plunged beneath that flood

Lose all their guilty stains. (Lyrics by William Cowper, 1772)

The imagery of washing in anyone's blood sounds like something out of a horror movie. But it's a part of our heritage.

And the blood is not just something we bathe in. We also drink it.

We are numb – to a certain extent – regarding this notion of drinking the blood of Jesus. Whether you consider this a symbolic act (like most of us and most of our other Protestant brothers and sisters) or a literal act (like most of our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters), we forget that the first Christians were often charged with cannibalism - what with all this talk of eating flesh and drinking blood. (From Minucius Felix, Octavius, R. E. Wallis, trans. in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Buffalo, N. Y.: The Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), Vol. 4, pp. 177-178, quoted in a sermon by Jan Edmiston at Fairlington Presbyterian Church & Fairlingon United Methodist Church)

It's not known when our Jewish brothers and sisters stopped smearing lamb's blood on their door posts. After that first Passover, Moses said, "You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children." (Exodus 12:24)

But while the Jews continue to observe by eating unleavened bread they have not perpetuated the ritual of smearing blood on their doors.

There is no record of blood-smearing after that first Passover in Egypt. And we are probably happy about that. It's messy and it's disgusting and who would want a neighbor who practices a faith which involves painting the porch with blood every spring?

Generally speaking, we don't like messiness. We don't like the sight of blood.

We certainly don't like the idea of human torture, except for the few who still believe that it's an effective tool to use on suspected terrorists. I pray there are fewer and fewer of those.

We like tender stories, nice stories – like the one about Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. There was water and there was a loving Jesus with a towel tied around his waste washing the feet of the disciples. He even washed Judas' feet.

And whether you believe the Gospel of Judas which contends that Jesus and Judas were best friends or not – it's still true that Judas betrayed his LORD. But Jesus still washed his feet, knowing that Judas would betray him.

We like the words about service and love. "Love one another," Jesus said. And we like that. It's so much easier to take than the image of an innocent man tortured and hanging on a cross. But the truth is that life is messy. We are messy Christians – at best. Messy disciples.

I hear people say – all the time – "I don't pray enough." "I almost never read my Bible." "I feel really uncomfortable talking about my faith." "I'm not a very good Christian."

Michael Yaconelli, former editor of The Wittenberg Door wrote a book a few years ago called Messy Spirituality: God's Annoying Love for Imperfect People.

The basic message is this: Our messes are God's opportunities.

Debt. Broken relationships. Bad decisions. Poor choices. Terrible priorities. These are the things that make our lives a mess. Maybe not a bloody mess, but a spiritual mess to be sure.

And here's the kicker: The Bible is full of messy people and God forgave them if they turned to God and asked for help.

"Spirituality is not about being fixed" so that life isn't messy ever again. "It is about God's being present in the mess of our unfixedness." (Yaconelli, Michael. Messy Spirituality: God's Annoying Love for Imperfect People. Zondervan: Grand Rapids) 2002, page 13.)

We might be repelled by the sight of blood. We might even turn our eyes away from the sight of our Savior bleeding and dying on a cross. "But Jesus is not repelled by us – no matter how messy" we've made our lives. (Ibid, 12)

Jesus loves us and asks that we love each other. That's really it.

We are supposed to love each other even when it's difficult, even when it's messy, even if it involves some kind of bloody sacrifice – and I use that term in the British sense – although that might mean I'm swearing and I try not to swear from the pulpit. I mean no disrespect.

What I do mean is that this is Maundy Thursday. On this Thursday the 13th, perhaps we could begin to live out a series of loving moves in the name of the One who calls us to serve as he served, to love as he loved.

This is the blessing and Good News of Holy Week.

May this Maundy Thursday be the beginning of something clean and pure and beautiful.

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The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church on Maundy Thursday (Year A), April 21, 2001.