"To judge the living and the dead..." 1.12.14

Daniel 12:1-4

“At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. 2Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. 4But you, Daniel, keep the words secret and the book sealed until the time of the end. Many shall be running back and forth, and evil shall increase.”


John 5:15-30

15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.17But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” 18For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

19Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. 20The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. 21Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.


22The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, 23so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.


25“Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; 27and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. 30“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
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As long as I can remember, I have loved the Bible. I think I finished reading the whole book for the first time in 7th grade. A lot of it didn’t make sense, but the overall story did make sense and something about it captured my attention and my heart.


I have also struggled with the Bible a lot in my life. The Bible is challenging and it comes with lots of baggage. I’ve especially struggled with John’s Gospel because it makes such strong claims about Jesus. Favorite passages like John 3:16, that express the amazing love of God in Jesus are followed by the idea that those who don’t believe in Jesus are condemned. I struggled; I still struggle with the image of God condemning people because they don’t believe in Jesus.


I’ve always had friends who don’t believe in Jesus. Whether it was Jewish and Muslim friends in my elementary school or atheists in high school and beyond, there have always been people close to me who don’t accept Jesus as their Lord. These are people who take their responsibility to other people seriously, people who want to make the world better. It has never made sense to me that God would send them to hell because they didn’t understand God the same way I do. I thought of John’s Gospel as the center of this exclusive way of thinking about Jesus, and that kept me from paying much attention to John.


I took another look at John during my seminary internship. During Bible study a great saint of the church I was serving said that her favorite Gospel was Luke but she thought John was most likely to make someone become a Christian. That made me take another look, and what I discovered was the welcoming grace of Jesus I love in all the Gospels in more poetic language.


When we read John or any other part of the Bible we have to understand the passage we’re reading as part of a bigger book. You don’t have to read all the latest scholarship or take a college course about it. But you do need to know what’s around the text. The Bible doesn’t make sense if we read one verse by itself without reading the story it is part of.


The John’s Gospel is about the eternal word of God that was with God from the beginning of creation becoming a human being in Jesus. Jesus came to his own people to show them a different perspective on God. In John’s Gospel Jesus does signs or miracles so people will believe he is the Son of God. When they believe in him as the Son of God they will see more clearly who God is and what God wants. That especially means they will see that God is love: God loves us deeply, and God wants us to love each other.


In all the Gospels Jesus and almost everyone he interacted with was Jewish. When John says, “The Jews,” he means religious leaders who shared Jesus’ faith but generally opposed Jesus. Over the church’s 2000 years we’ve done a lot of harm because we blamed Jewish people for resisting Jesus. For Jesus, he was talking to his own community, not a different group. As much as Jesus and the religious leaders argue, they are part of the same faith community.


When this passage begins Jesus has just healed a man who had been unable to walk for 38 years. Like many of the healing stories in the Gospels, this one took place on the Sabbath, the religiously commanded day of rest. The religious leaders get upset because Jesus broke the Sabbath. They get even more upset because Jesus says God is his Father, which they think is disrespectful to God.


The argument between Jesus and the religious leaders here is about the relationship between God and Jesus. The religious leaders think of God as holy and totally separate from humans. The way to connect with God for them was to follow God’s commandments faithfully. The commandments strengthened the faith community and connected people to God. Since Jesus wasn’t following the commandments, they figured he couldn’t be following God.


Jesus responds that he’s following God more closely than they can imagine. God sent him with a specific mission: to do God’s will and even to judge the dead. God has given all these powers and all this responsibility to Jesus to so people will be able to understand God more clearly.


The leaders see God in the commandments, and that’s right, but not the clearest image they could have. Imagine a preschool child. The child learns when school starts to find Jevon, his morning partner, so they can share markers and start the day with drawing. The “commandment” the child learns is about finding Jevon, but the point is learning how to share and developing a routine. The commandment isn’t wrong, but it’s part of a bigger picture. You can share without finding Jevon and sharing is the bigger purpose.


The same is true in this story and in Jesus’ ministry as a whole. The commandments teach us how to love God and love our neighbor. The Sabbath commandment is a part of loving God; we set the Sabbath aside as a day specially dedicated to God to help us be more dedicated to God in the rest of our lives. Keeping the Sabbath is also a part of how we love ourselves and other people because we all need rest and a break from our work routine. The Sabbath isn’t the point in itself, but it teaches us about honoring God, and caring for ourselves and other people.


In the strict sense Jesus is breaking the Sabbath, but he’s not going against God’s law. Instead he is showing the people an even clearer picture of love. We can learn what love means even more perfectly by watching Jesus than by obeying the Sabbath commandment. When we’ve faced with a choice between breaking the Sabbath and caring for another person, the more loving, more faithful choice is to care. So Jesus heals on the Sabbath. That’s not something the religious leaders can take in; they can’t accept Jesus because he is too different from what they expected.


The religious leaders are stuck. They think about God as a lawgiver, so following God for them means following the law first and foremost.


Jesus came to set them free from that limited way of thinking and feeling. Of course, God gave the law, and Jesus wants to be clear he comes from the same God. Jesus’ ministry fits into the same story as God’s creation of the world, the call of Abraham and Moses, the Exodus and the law. But God is much bigger than that. Following God is much bigger and simpler than following rules.


More than anything else, God loves the world and every one in it. The way we follow God is by loving others. Jesus came to show us that.


The commandments also teach love, and rules are part of how we learn love, but they can also get in the way. Rules are easy to twist to support our power instead of pushing us to do our best. On the other hand, without rules sometimes we let ourselves off the hook too easily and forget to make love the center of our life. The religious leaders Jesus argued with had more trouble letting the rules get in the way of a vibrant and open relationship with God; our culture has more trouble getting lazy about love and substituting some vague, wishy-washy idea about being nice for the demanding work of love.


Judgment is similar. When we think about judgment as a matter of living up to rules, we will be afraid, but worse than that, we’ll be selfish about following the rules. In other words, we’ll approach life as if it’s a test where the most important thing is for us to follow the rules. That makes it about us.


When we know that judgment is about Jesus, and really, about love, that reminds us above all else to love. That’s why Jesus says that those who honor him and believe that God sent him will escape judgment. Believing in Jesus doesn’t give us a get out of jail free card. Instead, if we actually believe that Jesus is the Son of God and we honor him, we will live as if love is the most important thing in the world. We will actually, in our everyday lives treat people with love even when it is inconvenient or even dangerous. When we do that we will do the right thing consistently and contribute to God’s loving kingdom. So when the dead rise and Jesus judges us, we will have nothing to worry about.


The key to the whole passage, the whole series we’re about to begin and to thinking about judgment in general is the closing line of our passage: Jesus says, “My judgment is just because I seek to do not my will but the will of him who sent me.” The Bible teaches us that God is love, which means love is the heart and foundation of all judgment. At the end of the day that is what matters more than rules or even believing something about Jesus.


God is love; Jesus shows us that love by becoming human, welcoming outcasts and dying for us. It is that active, courageous, loving Jesus who will judge us when the world ends, so we can trust him to judge justly and mercifully. In the end, all will be well because love is in charge.


Thanks be to God.

"right in the middle," 12.24.12

Isaiah 9:2-7

²The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-on them light has shined…. ⁶For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Luke 2:1-14

¹In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ²This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

⁸In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹²This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ¹⁴"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

¹⁵When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." ¹⁶So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

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            The Bible is a story about God reaching out to us. There are twists and turns along the way. Sometimes people welcome God’s care, other times we turn away. In the beginning, God made a man and woman to tend a garden and nurture a life connected to God. Before long, the couple was tricked into breaking God’s commandment and choosing independence over closeness with God. Later, out of all the families of the world God called Abraham and Sarah to be partners in God’s promise. Through wanderings and changes God kept his covenant with Abraham and his descendants.

            When the people of Israel became slaves in Egypt, God sent Moses to lead the people out of bondage to freedom. Through desert wanderings, God taught the people rules to shape a faithful life together. Rules about worship and looking out for the stranger and the poor among them. In time the people came into the land God prepared for them, but soon desire and pride and the drive for power led them away from God.

God sent prophets and kings to call the people back. Sometimes those voices were welcomed, other times they were rejected and persecuted. When we’re honest with ourselves, we can understand why. There’s a part of each of us that wants to welcome God’s calling, welcome God’s love and concern for the most vulnerable. But there’s another part of us that thinks we know best, that wants to keep the biggest piece for ourself, that wants to be first and worries that opening ourselves to others will get us hurt.

God doesn’t give up on us. After centuries of twists and turns, closeness and rejection, God reached out to humankind in a truly unexpected way. God became flesh as a baby. A baby who was born in a stable in a holy land occupied by Roman power. God didn’t pick an easy year or an easy place. There were tensions among different Jewish groups, tensions with the Roman authorities, and a rising revolutionary movement.

On top of the big picture events that make the history books, Jesus was born into the middle of the usual stresses of life that no one ever reads about years later. Joseph and Mary were far from home and didn’t have a decent place to spend the night when the baby Jesus arrived.

Away from the spotlight of our story, on that night in Bethlehem normal life was going on too. Maybe the family next door to the inn was having an argument. A family down the road was about to lose their home to a creditor. Around the corner a young husband came home from a distant journey to a joyful reunion with his wife. Across the street another husband watched helplessly as his wife got sicker and weaker. An aging father wondered where his adult children were and whether he would ever see them again.

A baby cried, a donkey brayed, a camel scuffed its feel nervously. God came into the world unnoticed except by a few travelers on a dark night. The world changed and God got closer, but most people couldn’t tell the difference.

            Today too, it’s easy to miss the signs of God’s presence. In the rush and whirl of the world we can forget God’s calling. We feel overwhelmed by the immediate demands of life, and when something like today’s shooting happens we can feel like the world is simply too much. It’s easy to feel far from God when we hear news of children or firefighters senselessly murdered. The world is hard to understand and often threatening.

            But right in the middle of that fear and stress, anxiety, distraction and heartache we find God. God came to earth in human flesh so he could meet us exactly where we are. Jesus came to join us in the joys and sorrows of being human. He came to show us how to live and how to die. He came to show us the depths of God’s love for us and to bring us closer to God.

            In a hospital room or at the kitchen table, in a prison cell, at a Christmas party at work or at church, God is right with us. Our struggles and our celebrations are not alien to God, because Christ has shared our life. In Christmas, Christ breaks into our everyday world. God’s light of love shines in the darkness of fear and doubt. The message of God’s love is for everyone; the angel’s words to the shepherds are for you and me too. To you is born a savior who is Christ, the Lord.

            No matter where you have been this past year, God loves you deeply. No matter whether this is the first or the thousandth time you’ve stopped to listen for God’s message God wants to welcome you today. No matter what people have told you, no matter what secrets you have, no matter what burden of joy or shame or fear you’re carrying, God reaches out to you. Christ left heaven to share our life in all it’s messiness: that’s what Christmas is about.

            Glory to God in the highest! And peace to all people on earth. Thanks be to God.

            John 1

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

"Expecting a child in a broken world," 12.16.12

Luke 1:5-25

In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years. Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense.

Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him.

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.

”Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah, and wondered at his delay in the sanctuary. When he did come out, he could not speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to them and remained unable to speak. When his time of service was ended, he went to his home. After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”

Luke 1:26-45

²⁶In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, ²⁷to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” ²⁹But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³²He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

³⁴Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. ³⁶And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. ³⁷For nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

³⁹In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴²and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Luke 1:57-66

⁵⁷Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. ⁵⁸Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. ⁵⁹On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. ⁶⁰But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” ⁶¹They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.”

⁶²Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. ⁶³He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. ⁶⁴Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. ⁶⁵Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. ⁶⁶All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.

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            This week has been a stark reminder that the world is broken. There’s nothing I can say that will explain the tragedy in Connecticut. It’s hard to make sense of a world where children are massacred at school. Nothing can make that OK.

I can’t tell you why tragedy happens. I do not believe it is God’s will. I can’t tell you why God lets things like that happen. What I know is that the world is broken and God weeps over that brokenness. I’ve got an opinion on gun policy like you probably do. Inadequate access to mental health care is part of the problem, as is our culture’s fascination with violence and our decreased ability to get along with people with whom we disagree. The pieces of this puzzle are complex and there is not an easy solution.

A tragedy like this one in a place that seems so normal and safe shakes our assumptions about what normal and safe means. But the truth is that innocent kids die every day in staggering numbers. As some of the most vulnerable members of society, kids are often the ones who suffer for our sin and our mistakes. Daily, about 20,000 kids under 5 die worldwide from preventable causes like malnutrition, malaria and other diseases you and I never have to think about, mostly in the so-called third world.

Part of the problem is that those of us in wealthy and powerful countries feel far away from third world poverty, so we put a higher priority on our dinner reservation or Christmas shopping than on the lives of the children who will die tomorrow or next week. Some of those closer to the problem see opportunity for themselves in aid money rather than a responsibility to make sure it gets where it should go. Other issues of responsibility, dependency, economics, psychology, race and politics also get between resources and those in need. The common theme across the world is that those with the least power suffer first and most.

With so much trouble in the world it almost seems silly to open an old story like the Bible today. The truth is, we need to light candles most when it’s dark, and we need to sing songs of hope most when the world doesn’t make sense. The truth is the story of God’s love and promise in the Bible, is closely connected with children in Connecticut and children in Africa. God created this beautiful world. God weeps over violence and misery, and God sent his son Jesus to bring new hope and a clearer vision of love into our troubled world. Through Christ’s life, God knows the pain of losing a child to a violent death. God sees the terror and heartbreak on the faces of children and teachers in a suburban school and in a rural village where clean water seems like an impossible dream.

In a world where power speaks loudly and violence is assumed, God’s story began a new chapter in a conquered piece of desert. Zechariah was a priest. He and his wife Elizabeth were probably respected in their town, but Elizabeth was also shamed for not having kids. Mary and Joseph were regular folks from a small town in the middle of nowhere.

God stepped into these ordinary lives to keep the promise of redemption. The Angel Gabriel came to Zechariah to tell him the hope he’d given up on, the hope of being a father was coming true. Not only would Zechariah have a son, he’d have a son who would get people ready for the Lord, a son with an important role to play in God’s story of grace. While Zechariah is doubtful at first, when his son is born he praises God aloud with strong and grateful faith.