Revelation 7:9-17, 1 John 3:1-3 "A Great Multitude"

This morning we watched as the children of our church reminded us of some great stories from the Bible and great people who followed God in unique ways. We did this sort of as our own way of celebrating Halloween and giving the children an opportunity to dress up as their favorite Bible characters. But this wasn’t just an excuse for them to dress up. Tomorrow is Halloween, whose history is quite messed up and confusing. Halloween has pagan roots and sometimes is even referred to as the devil’s night. But the early church, when it came across the harvest celebrations and the odd pagan beliefs, decided that it was best to work towards sanctifying them, making them holy. We discover that the church did this with many holidays and we find that our Christian celebrations throughout the year often correspond with earlier pagan holidays that people were already celebrating.

Unfortunately, Christianity’s version of Halloween didn’t catch on quite as much as some of our other holidays. Christianity’s take on Halloween was to have a special day, November 1^st, where we celebrated the lives of those who have gone before, those who ran the race and fought the fight and followed Christ. And so, this morning, with our kids’ help, we celebrated All Saints Day (a couple days early), and we briefly remembered some of those who have gone before, those who we can learn from, those whose own faith inspires and encourages our faith.

The Bible actually spends a fair amount of time talking about the saints. It has a very simple definition for saints, one which we have gotten back to in Protestant churches in the last few hundred years. A saint is someone who is living or has lived in right relationship with God. A saint is someone who has had their sins forgiven by God. And on All Saints Day we remember that we are not the first saints in this world. There were many before us, many who we remember, who affected our lives in tangible ways, and many who lived throughout history. So, today, we celebrate the saints who have gone before. Maybe we remember people from the Bible whose stories inspire us. Maybe we remember a parent or grandparent that taught us what it means to be a follower of Christ. Or maybe we just remember that we are not alone in our faith, but share it with so many around the world and throughout history.

I. Saints

Perhaps we like to think of saints as being heroic, but heroism isn’t what brings sainthood on someone, rather it is faithfulness. Revelation 7 tells us a bit about what it means to be a saint. John sees a great multitude standing around God’s throne. They are all wearing white robes, they all have palm branches and they are from every tribe and nation, every people group from around the world. And they are crying out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

John is asked by his host or guide who these people in white are and he wisely answers, “Sir, you know.” John is told that these are the people who are going to be before the throne of God. They are the ones who get to serve him day and night. They will never face hunger or thirst, they will never have to deal with getting sunburned (hey, it says the sun will no longer shine harshly down on them… no more sunburns) and all tears will be wiped away from their eyes.

Sounds pretty good. I think I want to be a part of that group. So, how do I join up? Well, there’s something about a great tribulation, more on that later, and then there is the fact that the Lamb is their shepherd, and then there is the fact that their robes have been washed in the blood of the lamb.

The book of Revelation, with its many visions and signs spends a lot of time talking about the end of time and heaven, but it also is talking about today, just like it was talking about the time that John lived in. These visions of John’s tell what God’s followers have to look forward to, these visions of John’s help us to live through the difficulties of today, because we know there is something great in store for us. We know that in the end, we will stand in God’s presence at the throne, surrounded by a great multitude, facing neither hunger nor thirst, having our tears erased. Does this mean we will no longer have to eat or drink? No, we are told that there will be feasting in heaven. We are told that we will be able to drink from springs of living water. We just won’t want for food or drink, it will be available for us. And what gives us and those around us the opportunity to enter into God’s presence? The blood of the lamb, which washes our robes white. It’s odd imagery. It doesn’t totally make sense, especially if you’ve ever tried to get blood out of any clothes you have. And yet, the saints are those that have been washed in the blood.

II. Washed in the Blood

When I hear someone say they’ve been washed in the blood, I automatically think of them in a certain light. I think of an old Baptist preacher, with his Bible in his hand, waving it over his head. There’s a power in the words, “Washed in the blood”. But I’m not sure if this is an image that speaks as strongly to people today. I think John explains this better in his other writings. Instead of using this great, visual, powerful image of being washed in the blood, he describes Christ’s followers in a different light. In 1 John 3 he refers to those who follow Christ as the children of God. Now this is a phrase I can wrap my heart and mind around. Bbeing God’s children doesn’t mean all is well. 1 John 3 makes the point that the world is not always going to recognize you. It might treat you the same way it treated Christ. The world didn’t treat Jesus very well. And that takes us back to that mention in Revelation 7 of some sort of tribulation that this great multitude went through.

Normally, when we hear the word tribulation, we think of some great disaster during the end times. Normally, when we think of the tribulation it is the sign that Jesus is about to return. I have heard people comment on the disasters that have been happening across this world and how we just might be at the point of tribulation right now. And you know what, it’s possible. But it is important to remember that disasters have happened from the beginning of time. Even in the time that John was writing, it was unsafe to be a Christian. They faced persecution for their faith. They daily faced death for what it was that they believed. The Christians alive in John’s time, when the book of Revelation was being written were more in the midst of tribulation than we are today. They had a much better candidate for Anti-Christ in the Roman Emperor Nero than we have had since. And throughout the history of the church, Christians have faced horrible disasters. In the Middle Ages there was the plague that wiped out a third of the people living in Europe. I cannot even imagine such destruction. There have been wars and rumors of wars faced in every generation who has lived on this planet. World War I was to be the war to end all wars… and it was only a beginning.

John was writing the book of Revelation to people suffering their own tribulation. The visions that John received were able to give hope to people as they faced suffering and even death for what they believed. When John talked about these children of God who are not known by the world; when he talked about this great multitude standing at the throne of God, he was telling these people, these saints, these ordinary followers of Christ that what they were going through was worth it.

III. Heroes

The heroes of the Bible, the people who we look up to who have gone before us, all were willing to face what they did because they knew it was worth it. David was willing to face Goliath because he knew God would be with him. Miriam was willing to hide by the shore and watch her baby brother because she knew God was going to save him. John the Baptist was willing to live in the desert and eat wild honey and dress in weird clothing because he knew God was sending a Savior into the world. These people weren’t heroic in and of themselves. They didn’t eat a special form of Wheaties that gave them super heroic abilities. They didn’t need spinach to get them through their trials. No, what allowed them to do what they did, what gave them the strength to step out and face impossible odds was a certainty that God was with them. Further than that, it was the promise that something great was in store for them.

We have this same promise that they had. We serve the same God that they served. And yet we allow ourselves to shuffle along in our ordinary lives doing ordinary things, without a thought to what we could be doing. We need to be filled with the great trust that filled these heroes that have gone before us. We can step out and step up in faith the same way they did, and we can trust that God will be there with us and for us as we do so. This means taking risks. This means being faithful even when it hurts. This sometimes even means facing a time of tribulation. This means allowing the Holy Spirit to work in your life. It means allowing the Spirit to work through you in ways you may not even understand. It means reaching out to the community around you with your faith and your love. It means loving God with your heart, soul, mind and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself.

Are we going to allow ourselves to be inspired by those who have gone before us? Are we going to allow ourselves to be motivated by the promise of greatness that God has given us? I hope and pray that we will allow ourselves to take the same kind of risks that so many have taken before us. I hope and pray that we will allow God to work mightily in our lives and on our behalf, so that we can truly become more like those who have gone before us and so that we can read Revelation 7 and realize that John is talking about us, washed in the blood of the Lamb and living as children of God. Amen.

Mark 12:28-34 "The Jesus Creed"

What does it mean to be a Christian? How do you pick one out from a crowd? Is it by the way they act? Is it how they dress? My father used to work at Warner Lambert as a salesman. He sold Rolaids and other over the counter pharmaceuticals. During his meetings that he would go to, he would tell me that people would actually turn to him after they had sworn and apologize. He didn’t give people dirty looks about swearing. He didn’t try to make a big deal about his faith. But people knew from his demeanor and from his own language what he was about. And so, when they were having a conversation with him and a swear word slipped out, they would actually apologize to him for it. Basically, they acted differently around him because of the way he acted. Somehow, his lifestyle spoke to them in a way that didn’t need words and they knew he was a man of faith without him having to make a big deal about it. But again I ask, what does it mean to be a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus?

As good evangelicals it usually is defined by our having a personal relationship with Christ. It involves having asked Jesus into our heart, probably when we were children and most likely at camp. It involves trying to follow the commandments and live good lives.

These are all good things, but are they really the center of what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ? Maybe there is something else that better defines being a Christian than a prayer you said as a child or what you wear or whether you have a fish on the bumper of your car. Maybe the center of Christianity is actually found in today’s scripture, when Jesus tells us what the greatest commandment is: we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. If we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are called to live lives that center around these commandments. This is the center of what it means to be a Christian.

1. A Good Jewish Boy

Jesus grew up as a good Jewish boy. This is something that we sometimes forget. He was raised with a religion and with habits that those around him shared with him. He traveled to Jerusalem as a child for Passover. He participated in the holy celebrations of his day. His parents brought him up to go to synagogue every Saturday and even they were surprised by his religious fervor when, during his twelfth year, he got so caught up in discussions going on at the temple that he missed the train home. Jesus followed the religious customs of the day. We later see that he picked and chose certain rules and laws that he would follow, making a point that the Old Testament laws, like the celebration of the Sabbath, were for our good, they weren’t just things we had to follow.

But one of the habits that Jesus most likely did follow was the recitation of the Shema multiple times through the day. The Shema was recited aloud when you rose and when you retired; when you woke up and when you went to sleep. And it came from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It began with the Hebrew word, Shema, which means “Hear”, thus it’s name. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

The Shema. It was the first “prayer” that Jewish children would learn, and it would be spoken at least twice a day by those who took their faith seriously. Jesus took his faith seriously. We can expect that Jesus participated in the strange custom of repeating this aloud each morning as he awoke and then to saying it again at night when he prepared for sleep.

I can hear the questions already. “Why repeat the same thing over and over again? Isn’t it just going to become vain repetition?” Or “that isn’t even a prayer, it’s a command from God. What’s the point of repeating it on such a regular basis?”

Well, I think there was something healthy that happened when people of Israel repeated this to themselves each morning and each evening. It helped them set their minds on the right path for the day. It wasn’t a prayer designed to get them in contact with God. Rather it was a communication from God designed to help them focus right away in their day about what was important… Loving God with all their being. The Shema reminded them what was important in life. Love God and pay attention to his commandments.

Jesus grew up with this. Those around him grew up with it as well. His disciples did, the Pharisees did, the teacher of the law who asks him a question in today’s reading did. I’m not sure about Matthew, the disciple who had been a tax collector. He had probably fallen away from his faith as a Jew when he became a tax collector, but I would imagine that when he began following Jesus he probably started up again. The disciples didn’t see their following of Jesus as an end to their Judaism. Rather they saw him as a completion of what they believed and did as Jews. And so the Shema was important to them. It was a center of what they understood their faith, their very way of life, to be about. It was the true center of what it meant to be Jewish. And so, of course, Jesus came in and amended it.

II. Jesus’ Amendment

In today’s scripture we are told that one of the teachers of the law came and heard Jesus, the Pharisees and the Sadducees debating. This teacher of the law was probably the equivalent of a seminary professor. Here is someone who knew his Torah or first 5 books of the Bible. Here is someone who definitely recited the Shema on a daily basis. It must have been central to his life, for it was what he studied and taught. And we know that he took it seriously because he was dedicating his life to fulfilling it. As a teacher of the law, he was making sure that the commandments were being taught to the coming generation. And so the teacher of the law asks Jesus an important question. “Which is the most important of the commandments?” This was a very important question for the people of the day. They knew that God commanded them to keep the commandments. They also knew how difficult this was, so they would argue over which ones were more important and which were less, so they could have their important commandments that they paid closer attention to. We do the same. We think of the commandment not to murder as more important than the commandment not to bear false witness against our neighbor. We think using vulgar language is worse than taking the Lord’s name in vain. That one doesn’t totally make sense to me. There are certain swear words that Christians are just not allowed to use, but if you want to exclaim, “O God” it’s okay. It has been okay to take the Lord’s name in vain on television at least since the late eighties, though there are still vulgarities that are not allowed. This teacher of the law basically was asking Jesus to rank the commandments for him. But Jesus wanted to do something much greater than just ranking the commandments. He wanted to redefine them. And so he answered the teacher of the law by stating the obvious, and repeating the Shema to him, but then he amended it. He added another commandment, not from Deuteronomy 6 but from Leviticus 19:18: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is a big deal. Jesus took the center of Jewish life and practice and changed it. This is like someone coming to you and telling you that the Lord’s Prayer needs to be re-written. And we’re not just talking about what word we use to talk about sins. I’m talking about total rewrite. I’m talking about taking the first couple phrases in the prayer and keeping them and then finding a different prayer from the Bible and making that just as important. It’s a big deal. It’s earth shattering. And yet, the teacher of the law doesn’t call Jesus out on this. Instead he thinks about what it is that Jesus has said and he agrees with him. Scot McKnight, in his book The Jesus Creed, points out that putting these two Old Testament commands together is something that is unique to Jesus. Jesus isn’t taking someone else’s idea and just repeating it. The other records we have of Jewish life of the time do not connect these two scriptures in any way. And Scot McKnight goes a step further in saying that by putting these two scriptures together; Jesus is defining the heart of Christianity.

III. The Center

Jesus took the center of Jewish faith and faithfulness and changed it. He took the extreme importance of loving God and putting God first and tied it together with the idea that we need to love those around us. And when you begin to look closely at the teachings of Jesus throughout the parables you notice something quite amazing. All that he teaches about involves one of the two of these. The Ten Commandments are the same way. The first four commandments are about loving God, the last six are about loving others. Jesus has given us a center of our faith that, unfortunately, we have placed to the side and mostly ignored. Maybe we need to do as the Jews of Jesus’ day did. Maybe we need to do what Jesus did and recite this updated Shema to ourselves on a daily basis. Maybe we need to take this Jesus Creed and use it to remind ourselves as we wake up and as we go to bed what our faith is really about.

But many of us don’t like to repeat things over and over again. We live in fear that by repeating them we somehow rob them of their meaning. How many of you actually pay attention to the words of the Lord’s Prayer when you pray it on Sunday morning. In all honesty, I really don’t, I’m more worried about whether I’m going to get the “debts” part right. But when I’m praying on my own, I do say the Lord’s Prayer, and I do take the time to pay attention to the words. And the same can be done if we focus on this Jesus Creed in our lives. I’ve gotten in the habit of saying it when I put my watch on in the morning and again when I take my watch off. It helps because it is tied to something physical. I don’t say it out loud, Lisa might look at me weird, but instead mouth the words silently, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.” And after saying this to myself I make myself promise to live like that today. I ask God to help me live up to such a great commandment. And then, in the evening, while I remove my watch, I ask myself whether I lived up to the great commandment today. Usually the answer is no. Most of us are built to love ourselves more than we love our neighbors, most of us don’t naturally put our love of God first, above all else, in our lives. But then I ask God to help me do better tomorrow.

This is not something that I do because I am a pastor. This is something I think many Christians could make a part of their lives, and I think it would help us to grow in our faith in a powerful way. Scot McKnight, who is a professor at North Park University wrote a book about it. He is the one who has named this updated Shema “the Jesus Creed” and he is the one who is encouraging God’s people to take up the habit of repeating this creed on a daily basis and watching ourselves be transformed by it. I’ve got one copy and if you’d like to borrow it let me know. It’s got a lot in it, and opens your eyes to how revolutionary this great commandment is. But I challenge you, this week, starting tonight as you prepare for bed and continuing in the morning, to recite the Jesus Creed. You can write it down and tape it to your bathroom mirror. You can have it sitting next to your bed. Eventually you will have it memorized. I always get the heart, soul, mind and strength out of order. It doesn’t matter. Just try it. It’s not going to change God. It’s not going to affect how well he hears you when you pray. But it will affect you. It will put you on the right path each day. It will focus you in the right direction.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.” Amen.

Isaiah 45:1-7 "From the Rising of the Sun"

I have recently been reading some books about the history of the crusades. For a long time now I have found myself quite disturbed by what kings and nobles were able to do in the name of Christ, in the name of the church. The destruction caused by the crusaders as they made their way to Jerusalem and the power and riches that these crusaders craved truly repulsed me. I hoped that by studying the crusades, I would have a better grasp on where these people who called themselves Christians went wrong, therefore being able to explain away their horrible actions. But instead, I discovered something I wasn’t expecting, you run across believers who participated in the crusades out of their faith and desire to follow God’s will, and who acted as the conscience of the crusades, trying to protect the innocent, encouraging those in charge to turn away from their earthly desires, pushing the crusaders to act like the Christians they professed to be.

It seems that God was with the crusaders at key points through the first crusade, as there are signs and wonders that were reported by both sides that would be hard to argue against. Plus, there were just times where something would happen that defied reasoning. At one point, the crusaders faced a group of Arabs that outnumbered them about three to one, and they thought this would be their last battle. But just before the battle was to start, an earthquake happened and the Arabs ran away. Not a single crusader was lost in that battle.

The people of conscience continued to tell the crusaders not to trust in their own strength, but rather to trust in God. They also continued to rebuke the crusaders for how they would act after winning a battle.

Sometimes black and white is easier. It was much easier for me when I believed that the crusades were totally evil, purely man-made, an example of people using God to justify their own horrible deeds. I always thought of the crusades as Christians behaving badly. And to a certain extent, that is still there. But there is also an understanding that God was at work in the time of the crusades. He worked through his faithful in ways that I just cannot quite wrap my mind around.

Sometimes it is easy to see where God is working. Sometimes it is much more murky and difficult to pinpoint God’s hand at work. Sometimes we just let our own humanness get too much in the way. But God is at work in this world, and not always in ways that we are comfortable with. And in Isaiah 45 we see God at work in a way that was strange for his people and that would not make sense to them. But just because they didn’t understand how he was working does not mean that he wasn’t working.

1. Anointed King

At first glance, today’s scripture seems pretty straightforward. We have God promising to work through someone whom he has anointed, and through this person people around the world will know the strength of the Lord. If God were saying this to King David or any of the kings of Israel it would make sense. If God were talking about some leader from his own people who would step out and be victorious throughout the land, bringing freedom to God’s people, then this would make sense. But he isn’t. Instead, this is a prophecy that refers to Cyrus, a Persian king who defeated Babylon when the nation of Judah was being held captive.

We don’t know what Cyrus believed. We don’t know what his spiritual life consisted of. He may have been monotheistic, though he probably worshipped many gods like the leaders around him. He certainly wasn’t a part of God’s people of the day. And he certainly didn’t worship Yahweh, the Lord, our God. He was an outsider. He was a man of war who was not living in the covenant relationship that God had arranged with his people. He belonged to another people, another land, another god. But God was still willing to work in him and through him. God was his strength. God opened the way before him, and leveled the cities in his path. Cyrus’ faith did not matter; God was going to use him no matter what.

It gets stranger. Verse one begins by referring to Cyrus as God’s anointed. This is big. Being anointed by God means something big in the Hebrew language. There is another word that this could have been translated as, though the translators were wise, I think, to not take that option. You see the noun in Hebrew that is translated as anointed or anointed one is the noun, “Messiah”. Now obviously, Isaiah 45 is not trying to make King Cyrus of the Persians the Messiah.

There are many throughout the Old Testament who are anointed by God for certain tasks, often prophets or kings. Sometimes they even have oil poured on them in the anointing. King Saul and Kind David both had this. Prophets regularly referred to being anointed when they spoke of having a message from God. They were anointed to speak this word to God’s people. And King Cyrus, we find out, is one of these even though he might not realize it. But this is different than the anointed one that will be coming, the savior, the Christ. For Jesus, is anointed to a special ministry, one of reconciliation between God and God’s creation. And, of course, Jesus is more than just anointed, he is God’s Son.

But it is important to realize that saying that someone is anointed by God isn’t a term that is just thrown around for anyone. No, what we see here is God taking a non-believer and using this non-believer to further God’s purpose in a special way. God had a special relationship with King Cyrus though the king probably had no idea that such a relationship existed. And through this special relationship some pretty important things happened. The people of Judah were saved. And people from around the world got to know of God’s might. And all this happened because God had anointed this king to come in and destroy the enemies of Judah.

2. Following God

I like to make a big deal about following where God leads. It’s a theme that runs through many of my sermons. I believe that God calls us to certain paths and we, as Christians are given a choice of whether we are going to be faithful and follow or not. Further, I believe that as individuals and as a community of believers, it is our responsibility to work towards figuring out what it is that God is calling us to. I do not believe that it is wise or healthy to just sit and wait to see where God might lead. No, we are called to seek out God’s leading on our lives and then follow.

But here we have someone who is neither seeking out God’s leading, nor is he choosing to follow, but God is still using him, he is still God’s anointed. This is fairly unique in the Bible. And yet in some ways, it is something that is quite common. Look at Paul, for example. A case can seriously be made that he didn’t choose Christ as much as Christ chose him. He actually makes this case in many of his letters. He was out and about killing Christians, and throwing them in jail for their beliefs. If left to his own, he would never have accepted Christ. But God intervened in his life in a very dramatic way, blinding him and speaking to him from the sky on the road to Damascus, and he became the great evangelist who helped spread Christianity throughout the known world. No wonder Paul’s writings are so full of talk about grace. He knew that he really didn’t have much say at all in his own salvation. He knew it happened because God stepped in. And Paul isn’t the only one for which this happens. It happens to others throughout the Bible as they are called by God to follow him and when they do, the world changes.

But what is somewhat unique about King Cyrus is that God is just using him without expecting his repentance or his faith. This is unusual. Paul, when called by God, changed. So did others. But King Cyrus could be totally unaware of his role in God’s plan. But, in a way this isn’t terribly unique either. Think back to Joseph, the one with the brightly colored coat. His brothers decided (with evil intent) to sell him to Egyptian slavers, so that they would be rid of their young brother who was dad’s favorite and who had a bit of a problem with boasting. There was nothing redeeming in their decision to sell their own family member into slavery. But as his life continued, Joseph discovered that what his brothers planned for evil God used for good. Through Joseph the land around that area, including the land of Joseph’s own family, were saved from a horrible famine that could have done them much damage.

The great King Cyrus was being used by God and probably had no clue that this was the case. He would probably laugh at the suggestion that this scripture has of why God gave him the power he gave him. In verse four it tells us that for the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor.

The reason that King Cyrus has the power he has, the reason he has the ability to come in and defeat Babylon has nothing to do with his own might or power. It has nothing to do with his own faith or faithfulness. Rather, it is through him that God is choosing to save his people, this small nation in-between all these mighty empires. Cyrus would laugh at the thought that he is being blessed in his conquest for the sake of the small tribe of Judah. And yet, this is the very reason that God is blessing him: for the sake of God’s people.

There is another reason that God is using Cyrus though. It is in verse 6. He is doing it so that “from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know that there is none beside me… I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” We might think he is talking about time, from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting. But he isn’t. He’s talking about place. The place the sun rises is as far east as you can go, the place it sets is as far west as you can go. God wants people around the world to know him. He wants people around the world to realize that he is the one in control. He wants them to rely on God and not their own strength. And for this reason, God has anointed King Cyrus to do his will, even though Cyrus doesn’t realize it.

3. Why?

The way things happen in this world don’t always make sense to us. As we see such great destruction throughout the world, we cannot always understand how God could let it happen. This is particularly real to us in today’s world, as we look at the earthquake in Pakistan, the hurricanes in the gulf coast, the tsunami that hit southern Asia. It would be nice to be able to say that the destruction happened to evil people. It would be nice to think that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. But the Bible tells us that God sends rain to the righteous and the unrighteous alike. It would be nice to think that blessings come from God and disasters come from somewhere else, yet God tells us that he brings prosperity and creates disaster. When we try to understand the mind of God we only find ourselves getting headaches.

So how do we respond to this world that asks us why? How do we answer the question of how God can allow such destruction and pain to happen?

I’m not sure there is an answer. But what I do know is that God conquered death by directly facing it. Jesus didn’t come into this world in power, but rather in weakness. God didn’t cause all pain to go away but rather sent Jesus to experience pain himself. God is with us in the midst of crisis.

We are the church. We are the body of Christ. We are supposed to be following God, and representing God to those around us. How can we do this? By embracing suffering the same way that Jesus did. By being present with people in the midst of their suffering. By helping those who need help, feeding those who need food, clothing those who need clothes. Our answer to the question of how God can let pain happen is to be present with people in their pain. As we face our own doubts, we realize that God is at work in this world. He is working through us! Are we going to allow him to use us the way he used King Cyrus. Cyrus didn’t have a choice, God was going to use him no matter what. We are given a choice. We get to choose whether to allow God to use us. So, what are we going to do with this choice God gives us? Are we going to be God’s hands and feet so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting, people will know God? Amen.

Acts 17:16-34 "An Unknown God"

When I lived in Chicago I spent one summer working full time for the school library and the Covenant Archives. I had a co-worker whom I normally spent about half the day working with, and so we spent a lot of time talking about a number of different topics. Me being a seminary student, sometimes our discussions came to religion and God. She explained to me that she believed in God, definitely, but she didn’t really like all the rules and regulations that she found in the Bible. She felt that they were all about keeping her down and keeping her from having fun in life. I mean, and these are her words, what’s the point of dating if you can’t have sex.

Now I had a couple different ways I could answer this. One would be to avoid the question. Sometimes it’s just better not to talk about certain issues when you know you are going to be working with someone the rest of the summer. Another option would have been to try to persuade her that she was wrong, this could be difficult and could backfire and find me working with someone who cannot stand me for the rest of the summer. A third option was to attempt to have an open discussion about the issue in a way that showed that I was listening to the other person and I understood where they were coming from without necessarily agreeing with their view. This would allow you to discuss the issue and hopefully help them to see it from a different perspective without alienating them. This is the approach I took. We spent the day talking about whether the laws that God set up in the Bible made for a better quality of life or not. I tried to suggest that the laws we find in the Bible will make for a healthier life with more opportunities for growth and less risk of being hurt. I attempted to approach the Bible not from my starting point, which involves it being the Word of God, but instead from her starting point, which was that she wanted to have fun with her life. I tried to suggest that by following the lifestyle that God calls us to, we can have a better quality of fun.

We ended up deciding that we disagreed on the answer to this question, but that we could still work together and we could even still have these discussions with each other, for there was respect shown as we shared ideas about who God is and what he is all about.

Paul takes a similar approach when he comes to the people of Athens. He shows them respect and at the same time speaks the truth to them. So today we are going to look at Paul’s mission to the people of Athens and see what we can learn from it as we reach out to those around us.

1. Shouting From a Street Corner

Today’s scripture has a lot in it. We see an evangelist at work, we see an evangelist coming before a group of people and presenting his message in a way that they can digest, in a way that at least gets some of them interested. Our evangelist doesn’t have complete success, and he doesn’t get to present the message in a way that he is familiar with, but nonetheless, we see God working in the spreading of his truth, of his gospel.

The scripture begins with our evangelist, Paul coming to Athens. He is waiting for Silas and Timothy to join him, and as he waits he notices the things that he doesn’t like about the place where he is. Particularly, he doesn’t like the fact that the city where he is is full of idols.

And so, Paul does what any good Christian does when they are in a place where they aren’t comfortable and they have extra time on their hands; he begins to tell others about Christ. That’s right, Paul is bored and sitting around, so he decides to preach. Not exactly how we think of spending our spare time, is it? You and I don’t regularly decide that we need to go out to the market square and talk about Jesus to all those who we come across. And yet this is the very thing that Paul does.

We’ve got to understand that this is who Paul was; he was perfectly comfortable walking up to a crowd of people and starting to tell them about Jesus. Many of us aren’t built that way. And people today aren’t built to hear that either. Living in Chicago, when I would walk around downtown there were two types of people who would accost you. The first were the panhandlers, asking for money. In all honesty, they could be annoying, and I found myself regularly feeling guilty about the money I was spending on nothing because of their presence there. At the same time, being stopped on every corner by someone asking for money was just too much. But they weren’t as bad as the preachers. These preachers would stand on a street corner and shout, or speak into a megaphone at the people coming by them. Though they were seeming to use the method of Paul, they didn’t seem to get the same reaction as Paul. Instead of slowing to listen, people would speed up to get away from them. People today aren’t going to stop to listen to someone speaking on a street corner. We’ve been conditioned to pay them no mind.

The opposite was true in Paul’s time. And Paul didn’t just go to a street corner and begin preaching. He would always preach and teach at the local synagogue first. He would start by sharing his message with the Jews. These were the ones that he had the most in common with. These were the ones that were already on the right track. He didn’t need to take them as far. He didn’t need to convince them about God, they already knew about God. He didn’t need to tell them about their sins, they already understood this. All he needed to do was tell them the good news that the Messiah had come.

Unfortunately, the people at the synagogues often didn’t listen to him. And so then he would go to the marketplace. This is where wandering teachers would go to teach. This is where philosophers would go to discuss ideas. He was going to a place that was set aside for people to talk about religion, philosophy and politics. So Paul wasn’t just going and shouting from a street corner, instead, he was going to a place where people expected to hear others talk about God and he did that very thing.

We’re at a bit of a disadvantage because we don’t really have this type of place around us. And we are told that there are certain topics that we aren’t supposed to talk about in polite company, and among these is religion.

So, we don’t have the same opportunity that Paul had. We don’t have that place where we can go where we will find people ready to listen to us and hear the message that we have. So we need to find other ways to share the truths that we have with those around us. Quite often this happens in a less formal situation, quite often this happens in a one to one discussion instead of sitting in front of a crowd. And to do that we can learn a bit from what Paul did in Athens.

2. Common Ground

Now Paul doesn’t approve of idols. He wants nothing to do with them. We are specifically told in verse 16 that he was greatly distressed to see the idols and their abundance in Athens. Paul had been a leader in Jewish religion before he came to know Christ. There are certain things that are so very clear that were ingrained in him from the very beginning of his life, and one of the key ones is that idols are bad. It’s actually in the second commandment, or first, depending on how you break them up: no graven images! Idols are bad, they are wrong, they are incompatible with the Christian life. They’re breaking a commandment, one of the big ones.

When Moses came down off the mountain with the Ten Commandments he saw a golden calf that had been built by the Israelites so they could worship it. Moses and God were so taken aback and angry that that was almost the end of the people of Israel right there. And idolatry continued to be a problem for God’s people throughout the Old Testament. Their neighbors continued to draw them away from God and convince them that they needed to worship idols. And so Paul comes to Athens and is disturbed by the amount of idols that he sees around the city.

And yet, when Paul brings his message to the people of Athens, he realizes that he needs to begin where they are at, not where he wants them to be. And so he uses the very idols that he has so much difficulty with to make his point to them.

He begins by acknowledging the idols and commenting on the good that they represent. Instead of standing up in front of the idols and telling the people that they are worshipping false gods and trying to single-handedly destroy these abominations, Paul looks at the people and says, “I know you are a religious people”.

Paul starts on common ground as he tells people about Jesus. He’s not happy with where the people are. He’s not trying to advocate idol worship. Paul actually got in trouble with the silver workers in another city, Ephesus, because his message against idols was so convincing that he was putting the idol makers out of business. But here, Paul knows that there is much that separates him from the people of Athens, but there is something that connects him to them as well, and that is their devotion to a god, any god.

Do we do this? When we want to share with others about the truth that we’ve found, do we reach out to them in a way that accentuates what we have in common? No one wants to hear that they are living life wrong. No one wants to hear that they’ve got it all messed up. And yet, sometimes we are called to share that very message with them. And a way to do this is to encourage them with what they are doing right.

Instead of looking at everything that separates us from those around us who are not Christian, should we be noticing what we have in common with them? We will discover that they are more like us than we would like to believe. They have the hopes and insecurities that we have; the same dreams and fears. They even wonder at times about big picture questions that we might be able to help them to answer. They might be living a different life, they might be disobeying all the commandments, but just like us, they are wanderers on this journey trying to find some purpose and meaning to their lives.

3. Unknown God

In sharing his truth, Paul uses one of the very idols that he is so distressed about. He points out the idol made to the Unknown God and decides to use this as a starting point to tell the people of Athens about the one and only God who he serves.

Again, Paul starts where the people are and he presents a message that connects with the needs they know they have. He doesn’t start by telling them where they’re wrong, he begins by telling them where they’re right. He even quotes one of their own poets to them.

But Paul doesn’t end with what he has in common with the people of Athens. He uses this only as a foundation, he uses this only as a starting point so that he can then tell them the truth about God. You see, there are two errors that I think we sometimes make when we think about evangelism, when we think about sharing God’s love and truth with those around us.

The first of these is that we begin by telling people that they’re sinners. You cannot start with bad news. You cannot start by telling people how messed up they are. If you do, you will lose them all right away and you just won’t get anywhere with them. You’ll be like that person with the megaphone on the street corner watching people speed up to get by you as fast as they can. You’ll hear them saying to themselves, “Just don’t make eye contact, just don’t make eye contact.” In all honesty, though, very few of us make this mistake. Unfortunately, I think that because we are so worried about coming on too strong, we fall into the other error.

This second error is the opposite of coming on too strong. And it’s often referred to as loving someone into the kingdom. When we make this mistake, we spend all our time talking about what we have in common with those around us and we never move on to the stage where we tell people the truth about God. This allows us to have friendships with non-Christians, good friendships, but in many ways it makes our faith seem pointless in their eyes. For in our actions and our lives we are basically telling them that it doesn’t really matter that we believe different things, and therefore Christianity will really not make a difference in their lives. This is just as destructive an error as the first.

And so we are called to walk a thin line. We need to be accepting of those around us, we need to reach out in love to the lost, we need to focus on that which we have in common and allow them to know that we are a safe place to talk about difficult things. And then, when they are ready to talk about that which is difficult, we need to come in with the truth, even when it is harsh. We cannot allow ourselves to sugarcoat the message that God has for us, the message that Jesus died for. Like Paul told the people of Athens, we are to tell those around us to repent. I know this can be hard, and yet it is so very clearly what God calls for us to do. Paul talked about what those in Athens got right, but he then moved from this to tell them about what they were getting wrong, what they needed to change. He had spent time with them and given them a chance to know him, he then brought truth before them. Not all converted, but many were interested and wanted to hear more. And we are told that some among them became followers and believed.

So let us learn from Paul. Let us reach out to our friends and those we come in contact with. Let us find things that we have in common with them and use these as an opportunity to build that relationship with those around us. And, when the time is right (and we need to trust the Spirit to let us know when this is), we can share truth with them in a loving way that will move them closer to the kingdom of God. Amen.

Philippians 3:4b-14 "Pressing On"

When I was in high school I spent my Wednesday nights much differently than I do now, particularly each spring. You see, we didn’t have Wednesday night activities at our church and I wasn’t much into the normal team sports that are usually offered at school. Oh, I did play basketball, but I wasn’t very good at it. The sports that I was interested in were snow skiing and water skiing, neither of which were offered at our school. You could say that perhaps part of my problem was that I wasn’t into team sports, but I was. You see, I also participated in another team sport that also wasn’t offered at our school: sailboat racing. There was a group that my parents got together with that would race sailboats on Wednesday nights in Puget Sound. And I started participating in these races my junior and senior years in high school.

In all honesty, I didn’t do much, for I was the only one on our boat who wasn’t an adult, and there were also long times where everybody’s just sitting in between tacks and jibes. But I did get to help in some ways and I really enjoyed these races.

The interesting thing about sailboat racing is that you are so beholden to the wind. Though the course was the same every week, it was never raced the same way. The direction of the wind, the amount of wind and the current all affected the way we would race.

Sometimes we would get ahead of others by being the first boat to get the anchor in the water when the wind died as we watched the other boats get pushed backwards by the current and we stayed stationary, waiting for wind to pick up again. Other times it was about watching the water for areas where the wind was greater and working your way towards those gusts without letting the other boats see where you were going. And sometimes it was just an all out race that was won or lost because of the speed of our boats and the fluid transitions that we made.

No matter what the evening brought, we learned to press on towards the goal. With the changes in the weather that could come, it didn’t really matter what you had done up to that point, what mattered was what you did from that point forward. It didn’t matter whether you had a bad tack with a fowled line on your last turn, what mattered was what you would do on your next turn.

Paul uses the imagery of a race in today’s scripture to talk about our spiritual lives. And he reminds us that what is important is not what we have already done, rather it is what lies before us. So let us look at what is before us today and see where it is that this race will take us.

1. Behind us

In today’s scripture, Paul tells us to get our priorities strait. Paul sees that some people like to lord it over those around them because they live better lives than those around them. They follow the law better. They don’t sin as much. They’re better people and therefore better Christians. Paul tells us that by acting this way, by feeling this way, by being all superior, we are missing the point of what the gospel is all about.

Now it is easy for someone who does not live the life we are called to to complain about those who are living the life and to look down on them for looking down on you. If you’re living a life of sin, and you feel that you are being judged by people who are living holier lives than you, you are going to feel sour grapes and you are going to say some of the things that Paul says here. You’re going to tell them not to hold it against you that you are in sin. You’re going to tell them that it isn’t important that you follow all the laws and such because that is not really what the gospel is about. You’re going to make excuses for your misbehavior.

But what happens when someone who has lived the life we are called to then says that it is meaningless. Now we need to listen to this message, because it isn’t coming from sour grapes; it isn’t coming out of a dismissal of that which you don’t feel you can attain.

And so, Paul begins to list the things that he has done right in his life. He begins to talk about how good a person he is. He begins to boast about himself and his innate goodness. And then he says this amazingly horrible thing. All of the good that he has done is worthless; it’s garbage. Everything that sets him apart from the lowliest sinner is nothing. His own goodness pales in comparison to God’s great goodness.

When I was in grade school and we were studying the solar system, we did a little hands-on project to help us to see the size and scope of the solar system. We went out to the field and one of my classmates stood out near the school and they were the sun. Then someone else stood a small distance from them and they were Mercury, the first planet. We then each got assigned as a planet and were told how far away from the sun we were to stand. Compared to Mercury, earth was quite a ways away from the sun. I had to walk quite a distance to get far enough out to be the earth. But then Mars was twice the distance away from the sun that earth was, the girl representing Mars had to walk twice as far as I did, and when we came to Pluto, we couldn’t even have someone go out to the field because it would be a couple miles away, that’s right, miles. When we pay attention to our goodness and someone else’s, we sometimes feel like Earth compared to Mercury. We sit there and talk about how much farther away from sin we are than that other person. We’re four times farther away than them, we’re twenty yards past them. Twenty yards seems like so much to us and it seems like something that we can be proud of. But Paul then tells us that when God enters the picture we see everything in a new perspective. When measuring things in yards, twenty yards seems like a whole lot, when measuring things in miles, twenty yards is nothing. The difference between us and the worst sinner may seem like so much, but it is nothing compared to the difference between our goodness and God’s.

Now this may seem like bad news. For it is basically telling us that we can never be as good as we’d like to be, we can never come close to what God really desires from us. But then Paul tells us the good news that is in this. Our goodness doesn’t need to come from us, instead it can come from faith in Jesus. There is a righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. It has nothing to do with how good we are, it comes purely from our faith in Christ. Good news, cause for us to rejoice, cause for us to celebrate. We don’t have to do it on our own. We can have Christ to help us. And then Paul begins with his race imagery. We aren’t there yet, he says, we are still running the race. We are still striving forward towards the goal that God has set for us. We may be twenty yards ahead, but we’ve still got miles to go.

2. Running a Race

There is a parable, not in the Bible, but one that we need to hear anyway, and it tunes in to this imagery that Paul uses about a race. This parable is from the book Adventures in Missing the Point by Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo (pg 26 – 27) and the parable reads as follows:

Once upon a time, in a land of boredom and drudgery, exciting news spread: “There is going to be a race! And all who run this race will grow strong and they’ll never be bored again!” Exciting news like this had not been heard for many a year, for people experienced little adventure in this ho-hum land, beyond attending committee meetings, waiting in lines, sorting socks, and watching sitcom reruns.

Excitement grew as the day of the race drew near. Thousands gathered in the appointed town, at the appointed place. Most came to observe, skeptical about the news. “It’s too good to be true,” they said. “It’s just a silly rumor started by some teenaged troublemakers. But lets stick around and see what happens anyway.”

Others could not resist the invitation, arriving in their running shorts and shoes. As they waited for the appointed time, they stretched and jogged in place and chattered among themselves with nervous excitement. At the appointed time they gathered at the starting line, heard the gun go off, and knew that it was time to run. Then something very curious happened. The runners took a step or two or three across the starting line, and then abruptly stopped. One man fell to his knees, crying, “I have crossed the starting line! This is the happiest day of my life!” He repeated this again and again, and even began singing a song about how happy this day was for him.

Another woman started jumping for joy. “Yes!” she shouted, raising her fist in the air. “I am a race-runner! I am finally a race-runner!” She ran around jumping and dancing, getting and giving high fives to others who shared her joy at being in the race. Several people formed a circle and prayed, quietly thanking God for the privilege of crossing the starting line, and thanking God that they were not like the skeptics who didn’t come dressed for the race.

An hour passed, and two. Spectators began muttering; some laughed. “So what do they think this race is?” they said. “Two or three strides, then a celebration? And why do they feel superior to us? They’re treating the starting line as if it were a finish line. They’ve completely missed the point.”

A few more minutes of this silliness passed. “You know,” a spectator said to the person next to her, “if they’re not going to run the race, maybe we should.”

“Why not? It’s getting boring watching them hang around just beyond the starting line. I’ve had enough boredom for one life.”

Others heard them, and soon many were kicking off their dress shoes, slipping out of their jackets, throwing all this unneeded clothing on the grass. And they ran—past the praying huddles and past the crying individuals and past the jumping high-fivers. And they found hope and joy in every step, and they grew stronger with every mile and hill. To their surprise, the path never ended—because in this race, there was no finish line. So they were never bored again.

Do we sometimes forget the race that we are running? Do we think that it’s enough to call ourselves Christians and leave it at that? Or do we realize that there is a race, a journey that we are on when we enter into this Christian life? Do we realize that becoming a Christian isn’t the finish line, rather it is the starting line? Do we allow ourselves to move forward in our faith and in our journey to see where God will lead us next?

We aren’t much farther along in this race than those who have not even crossed the starting line. Instead of looking back at them and scoffing, we should be encouraging them to join in with us and move forward on this great adventure that God has put before us. We too are called to forget all that is behind and strain toward what is ahead. We too can press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus. We too can run the race, leaving that life of boredom and sameness and following the path that God leads us on. Amen.