The Household of God

1 Peter 2:1-10
6th Sunday of Easter
Elizabeth M. Deibert

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Someone asked me the other day, “Why do you choose to serve new churches?” Isn’t that harder work than going into an established church? I don’t know how much harder it is, but it is definitely less secure. There are many risks and many adjustments to be made. There is a stubborn tenacity required. Oh, but there is also tremendous joy in being part of the development of a new congregation. Oh, how I love watching us, the people, get built by God into a spiritual house, into a holy priesthood. Every new person is a new rock in the cairn, the landmark of worship. Every new person brings his/ her own gratitude and we pile it up in praise of God.

We can sing “I am the church. You are the church. We are the church together” and know that it is true. We know in the depths of our souls the meaning of our scripture today, when Peter says, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” We know we are God’s people, having been brought into God’s marvelous light, that we might announce the goodness of God. We’re here, Peace Presbyterian, for a purpose that transcends all we can imagine. We are the household of God, the living stones which come together as a dwelling place, a sanctuary for God and all who are seeking God in Jesus Christ.

Hear the word of the Lord from 1 Peter, one of the general epistles, not addressed to a particular church, but to a group of churches, to challenge them to live cohesively into their identity as the new Christian community. This letter, which affirms the distinctively holy and obedient way of life for the church, helped early believers, who were suffering and feeling alienated from their culture, to know that they had a deep sense of belonging in their union with Christ and each other. It is attributed to Peter, who was given that name by Jesus. The name means “rock” and he says, “on this rock I will build my church.”

1 Peter 2:1-10

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile,

insincerity, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants,

long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation—

3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals

yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and 5 like living stones,

let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood,

to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

6 For it stands in scripture: "See, I am laying in Zion a stone,

a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him

will not be put to shame." 7 To you then who believe, he is precious;

but for those who do not believe,

"The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,"

8 and "A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall."

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people,

in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him

who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people;

once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

NRSV

Having told them they are born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead, the churches are told to be disciplined and to live in love together. They are told to be done with all malice, guile, insincerity, envy, and slander. There is no place for such meanness, deceit, jealousy, or insults in the church. He challenges them to grow into their salvation.

As I said last week on Confirmation Sunday, salvation is not just about acknowledging the grace of God, which is the wonderful gift of forgiveness, but it is of living into that gift obediently, living changed lives, serving Christ with all that we are. Nothing does more damage to the church than church people lacking integrity of witness. If we have tasted that God is good, we are to be good, to long to grow spiritually, to drink more deeply of the nourishing, sustaining milk of the Spirit.

We are to actively come to Christ, the living stone, and to let ourselves be crafted into a spiritual home for God. We are a holy and royal priesthood, all of us together. I was terribly disturbed at presbytery Thursday when I complimented one of the ministers leading worship, who had been a celebrant at the table, and he dismissed my comments. I said, “Thank you for your leadership in worship,” and he respond, “Oh I didn’t do anything.” I said, “Yes you did. You handled the mysterious of God.” And he said, “Oh, it was nothing. We were having fun up there together.”

Well, I am glad for pastors to have fun together, but I believe that when we come together for worship, holy and mysterious things are happening. Barriers are coming down. Stones of all colors and shapes are being forged together into a sanctuary of grace. Forgiveness is being granted. The Word is being planted in our hearts, minds, souls, where they take root and grow. Bitterness, ugliness, and anxiety are being uprooted. Gratitude is growing. We are being nourished with the Sacrament, and are offering ourselves as spiritual sacrifices to God. I don’t mind people having a good time together on Sunday mornings, as long as they do also realize that these amazing transformations are taking place when we are together. The Holy Spirit is melting and molding and filling and using us.

Recently in my annual pastoral review, I was asked by the Administrative Team to talk about my strengths and weaknesses. I talked about my love of connecting people. I enjoy being like glue for relationships. As I studied this passage, I realized that it is the Spirit is the mortar holding us as living stones together. I just like cooperating with the Spirit in that process, facilitating it.

And one of the hardest things for me in ministry is when relationships come unglued, when stones in the church become dis-lodged or when people in the church are unkind to one another. Another way to put it is that church dissonance really disturbs me. I believe so strongly in our bond, I have a hard time accepting anything that disrupts it. I challenge each of you to recognize that you, as a living stone, are affecting all the stones around you. You are responsible to God for the faithful stability of one another. You belong to each other. You don’t have to agree with each other on everything. My brother, an elder, who left the Presbyterian Church in his young adulthood for charismatic churches, recently decided to leave the Presbyterian Church again because of his disagreement with the language of ordination standards. I believe at times like this, we need to remain together. This sanctuary makes room for people.

The verb in verse 5 is passive – like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Being the church together means submitting ourselves to the higher purpose of being whom we are together rather than seeing ourselves as individual, free to do whatever we please. The growing sense of individualism in our culture does damage to the church. Can you not see that your choices affect others to strengthen or weaken their faith? Your discipline or lack thereof affects others. Your attitudes affect others, and certainly your kindness or meanness affects others. You have the priestly power and the responsibility to build faith, not to tear it down. Not just those of us standing in the front, leading worship, but all of you bear that burden.

How many youth and their families have disappeared from churches because of the malice and guile (meanness and dishonesty) of other youth? How many adults have left churches because of an insincerity of welcome or a slander of character? Get on board with this, people of God, you are a holy priesthood, bearing with your lives the truth of God’s mysterious and loving presence to all the people – inside and outside this place. You have received mercy that you might lavishly give it away. So be merciful, forgive one another, just as you in Christ are forgiven.

You exist, Peace Presbyterian Church, that others might look at the beautiful sanctuary of loving people God has built, and be amazed. Don’t be anything other than who you are – a beautiful, loving sanctuary, a safe place, for the living God to dwell.

Arise, your light has come. The Spirit’s call obey.

Show forth the glory of your God, which shines on you today.

Forever Your Advocate

John 14:15-21
Confirmation – 5th Sunday of Easter
Elizabeth M. Deibert

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

When you were an infant, you had all your needs provided. Your only job was to cry, and one of your parents or caregivers would feed you, rock you, or change your diaper. Your adoring parents were your advocates, proud when anyone else noticed just how beautiful or how amazing you were.

When you were a toddler, you wandered off close to danger many times. You nearly touched the hot stove. You nearly pulled the lamp over on top of you. You nearly ran out in the road to be hit by a car. You threw temper tantrums, sometimes hurting yourself, sometimes others. We hope you’ve outgrown those. And in those moments of risk, your parents or caregivers were your advocates swooping you up at just the last moment, guarding your life and teaching you about its dangers
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When Tim, Amanda, Liz, and Rebecca were little, their parents brought them to church for baptism, promising along with the congregation to nurture them in Christian faith. We entrusted them to God’s care, hoping that one day these children of ours would grow up to profess their own faith. At your baptism, confirmands, the minister or priest prayed that the Holy Spirit would descend upon you to guard and protect you, to fill you with wisdom and grace, that you would grow in the ways of Christ and be part of the communion of the faithful.

And here you are today, claiming that responsibility for yourselves today. Here you are, today, after years of Christian nurture, after years of advocacy in your life by your parents, after years filled with both good choices and bad, here you are, standing before God in the presence of these witnesses to say that the Christian faith into which you were born is now what you claim now for yourself. In the company of these people, this congregation called Peace gathered with others who love and support you, you are stepping out in faith by the power and the counsel or advocacy of the Holy Spirit.

You are becoming fellow believers, not just children of the church. You are our brothers and sisters in Christ now. When you were baptized, your parents dedicated you to Jesus Christ. Now you are dedicating yourself to Christ. They’ve been carrying you around in this glorious an arduous marathon called the Christian life, and now you are saying, “I’m ready to run the race with my own two feet.”

As you take this significant step, it is crucial that you understand that you are promising to do your best to live according to God’s truth with the support of God’s people, to live according to the mercy and grace which is yours in Christ. Further, you need to appreciate the gift of the Advocate, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit who promises always to be with you. Hear the words of Christ to his disciples, as words to you today:

John 14:15-21

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,

to be with you forever.

17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,

because it neither sees him nor knows him.

You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

18 "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.

19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me;

because I live, you also will live.

20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me;

and those who love me will be loved by my Father,

and I will love them and reveal myself to them."




In these six verses, we see the essential nature of the Triune God. Jesus asks his Father who sends the Spirit. Jesus says, “I am coming to you,” helping us to appreciate that the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. He says that one day we will know this communal nature. One day we will know, Jesus says, that “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” Not only do we see the mystery of our Triune God in this passage, but we see the paradox of our Christian life. That God promises us the reliable loving, guiding presence of the Spirit, but also asks for our loving obedience. Some Christians dwell on the promises of God. They emphasize the grace of God, by which we are saved. It is not our faith, but God’s grace by which we are saved. In this passage, we are promised not to be orphaned. No we have a forever advocate, a lasting supportive presence in the Holy Spirit.

But there’s another side to the story. We are called to obedience. We are called to live according to the commandments of Christ, like the song we just sang with the children. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind. And the second is like it, “Love your neighbor just as you love yourself.”

You see, Tim, Liz, Rebecca, and Amanda, it is wonderful for you to know that God loves you. That was the message of your baptism – that God’s love for you is endless. When you were little, nothing could be expected of you, so the emphasis of your baptism was on what God has done for you in Jesus Christ. It is a wonderful message of grace, forgiveness, and love – a message we want to share with all who have not heard. It is great news.

But the confirmation of your baptism is your commitment to love God back. When you love people, you care what they think, what they want. You want to make them happy. You cannot say you love God, Christians, if you don’t care enough about Christ to worship and pray, to serve and forgive others, to study God’s word and be open to the Holy Spirit’s leading. This is work, sometimes joyful work and sometimes really difficult work. So while God loves you and nobody and no thing can ever take that away from you, you have a responsibility to respond to that love with obedience. Not a popular word these days – obedience – but when we live as God intends, the mysteries of God’s goodness are more fully revealed to us. We live then more fully because Christ is living in us.

I want to end with a story that Nancy Hogue sent to me this week. It is a great testimony to the power of Christian love in the life of a teen:

There was this new kid, a freshman in high school, on the way home from school one Friday. As he was carrying a big pile of books, a group of bullies, approached with insults. They knocked all the books out of his arms and tripped him up, so that his glasses went flying. Another freshman saw this and because of his Christian compassion, he was moved to help this nerdy guy named Kyle. Afterwards, their friendship grew, and when they graduated from high school four years later, Kyle was the valedictorian and gave the speech at graduation. He opened his speech with a story that shocked everyone. He told the story of the week-end Freshman year that he had planned to kill himself. He explained how his friend’s compassion on that Friday afternoon and the days that followed had made all the difference in his life.

We are called to be that kind of people, people who love God and love others with deep compassion. We are given the Holy Spirit as our forever advocate, that we might be advocates for others, especially those in greatest need.

Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who Is everywhere present, filling all things, Treasury of Good Things and Giver of Life: Come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.

Sober Cannibals and Drunken Christians

Scripture Lesson: Matthew 7:15-29.

Morgan Roberts

COMMENTS ON THE SCRIPTURE LESSON

Our scripture lesson for this morning sounds like the “wind up” of a sermon, the preacher’s closing words to drive home the main points of the message. In fact, that’s what these words are: the closing words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. To help us unlock their meaning, we need to get ourselves properly situated; we need to remember that we are not sitting on the mountain with those who first heard these words from Jesus’ lips. We’re not back there. Instead, whenever we read any of the four gospels, we are sitting in some early congregation for which some pastor has taken an orally transmitted collection of the words and works of Jesus and reduced them to written form. The gospels thus represent “what someone said that Jesus said.” This does not mean that these are not Jesus’ words; however, because Jesus didn’t publish his words in written form, what we have to rely upon is what someone else has reported. Thus, the voice of Jesus is not coming to us “live” from the mountainside; instead, we are listening to the voice of the pastor as he (or she) reads these words of Jesus to us.

This pastor/author is writing about 50 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. We don’t know his/her name; many years later, this gospel was attributed to Matthew to enhance its status and authority in the early church. For convenience, however, let’s call our author Matthew. Let’s remember also that the gospels were not written to become part of a collection that came to be called the New Testament; that wouldn’t happen until more than two centuries later. What is important is that we are seated in this early congregation for which this gospel was written, and because these words of Jesus have particular relevance for this pastor’s congregation a half century after the time of Jesus, this gospel will tell us not only what was happening in Jesus’ day, but also what may have been happening in Matthew’s church.

So when we hear Jesus warning his disciples to beware of false prophets, what we surmise is that there were also false teachers misleading the members of Matthew’s congregation. And what they are saying represents a denial of what Jesus emphasized in his Sermon on the Mount. So, what might these false prophets be saying that is in conflict with the words of Jesus?

Jesus pronounced beatitudes upon the peacemakers, but the false teachers are blessing the warmongers. Jesus said that we must love our enemies because God has no enemies, that he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust. But these teachers are saying that it’s a dog-eat-dog world and that you’d better be well-armed against your enemies. Jesus said that we can’t serve God and wealth and that we should not anxiously heap up treasures on earth. But these teachers are saying, “Forget such idealistic nonsense; God wants you to be prosperous.” (Sound familiar?)

So Matthew reiterates Jesus’ earlier warning, “You will know them by their fruits… A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” We will be known by our lives, not by our words. What will matter is not that we go about mouthing the claim that we “know the Lord,” but that, by the fruits of righteousness produced by our lives, the Lord knows us.




SERMON

The late William Sloane Coffin, former pastor of New York's Riverside Church, was once a guest preacher in my pulpit at the Shadyside Church of Pittsburgh. I can’t remember why, but early in his sermon he made some reference to Herman Melville's Moby Dick and, before doing so, referred to it as “the book that most of us have never finished reading.” Even if you're one of those who never got all the way through the many chapters of Moby Dick, maybe you have recognized that classic as the source of today's sermon title because my reference to it appears very early in the book in the third chapter when Ishmael, the narrator of the story, obtains lodging in the only available room at the Spouter-Inn but later discovers that he will be sharing his bed with the pagan harpooner, Queequeg. When Queequeg finally arrives, Ishmael is frightened out of his wits by his savage appearance. The innkeeper, however, assures him that Queequeg is a truly sober, kind, and gentle soul. With this assurance, Ishmael falls asleep saying to himself, “Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”

Outward appearances may not match inward realities. The product inside the box may not match the label on the outside. And with people, what difference does any label, ethnic or religious, make if we don't behave ourselves in a civilized manner? How we behave is always more important than how we label ourselves or others. Then too, deeds are always more important than creeds. Or put differently, what good are our creeds if they aren’t matched by our deeds?

On the night before Tricia emailed me with an invitation to preach today, I had an interesting dinner conversation with a young doctor who teaches at the Lake Erie College of Medicine. When he asked me what I was doing in my retirement, I told him how much I enjoyed tutoring migrant farm worker children at our RCMA Academy at Beth El Mission. And that precipitated his story about one of the most interesting and important persons he was ever honored to meet.

His story was about a man in his native country who devoted his life to the education of children whose parents were migratory. Here in America, our migrant workers follow the crops. In his country, they followed their herds; they were nomads whose children were deprived of a settled education. This man, however, even though his noble birth afforded him a formal education in law and fluency in English, German, and French, never forgot that he himself was born in a tent, the son of a tribal chieftain. And so he went and pitched his “white school tent” among a nomadic people and, from that simple beginning, as others joined him, there began a movement that grew so rapidly during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s that, by the end of his life, having established 550 nomad schools, a half million nomads could read, with the most promising students going on the a nomad college that graduated 9,000 trained teachers, many of them women, and other graduates who moved on to careers as physicians (especially obstetricians), lawyers, and engineers.

Of course, this man and his movement encountered all kinds of opposition and difficulties; particularly because the education of so many women threatened the status quo of those for whom an uneducated populace, raised by illiterate mothers, was a source of profit and power. So threatening was the success of his educational work that, finally, his enemies paid him the supreme compliment: they accused him of being a CIA operative! When he died in May of 2010, the gratitude of those who had received a better life was so overflowing that, at his funeral, 24,000 mourners were in attendance.




Such stories somehow don’t make our front pages, maybe because all of this took place in Iran, and his name was Mohammad Bahmanbeigi, and he was a Muslim. Rather surprisingly, however, this man devoted his life to something beautifully Christ-like. In the prologue of John’s gospel, it says that the Word became flesh and “pitched his tent among us.” And this man did exactly that, he stepped down from a higher, nobler place and “pitched his tent” among a people deeply in need of the light of literacy.

On the morning after I heard this story, I received Tricia’s email with her gracious invitation to preach. Before responding, I looked up the lectionary text for today, the words of which literally jumped off the page with Jesus’ reminder that “You will know them by their fruits…a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.”

How is it that, every so often, people who make no claim at being Christian end up doing something more Christ-like than what is being done by the Christians? Back in the 1950s, when Mohammad Bahmanbeigi was going about, like Jesus, “doing good,” I had two friends who were serving as missionaries in Iran. Within certain limitations, that was still possible under the rule of the Shah, before the 1979 revolution. They had gone there from our fundamentalist church to save souls, to rescue from eternal damnation the millions who had not accepted Christ as Savior. My friends were good people, doing at great personal sacrifice what they believed God had called them to do. But at this same time, this good Muslim was acting like a follower of Jesus, reaching out to poor people who were lost in the midst of life. I somehow cannot believe that, upon his death, his soul was cast into an eternal hell.

From where does such Christ-like goodness arise? I wonder if the answer is right there in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount in its most radically difficult commandment: to love our enemies. Do you realize what that commandment is saying? It is telling us that the God and Father of whom Jesus spoke is a God who looks upon no one as an enemy. Surely, a God who commands us to love our enemies would not disobey his own commandment. The God whom Jesus taught us to call our heavenly Father must be a God who will never allow anyone be his enemy. When Jesus uttered this radically difficult commandment, he was literally tearing pages out of Hebrew scripture, telling us to disregard any story that suggests in any way that God is an enemy of his own dear children, that God is an unfriendly God.

And that is why Jesus reminded us that God makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust. If that is true, then something brighter than sunlight must be shining over all the earth. The dazzling light of God’s Spirit must be making God’s truth known wherever any heart is open to receive it. How else can we explain the extraordinary goodness that crops up every so often in so-called “pagan” lands? How else can we account for those instances when people who do not wear the Christian label are, somehow, living like genuine followers of Jesus? Evidently, God’s Spirit is not a prisoner of the church. As one of our hymns proclaims,

His spirit floweth free, High surging where it will:
In prophet’s word He spoke of old – He speaketh still.

Before the reading of the lesson, I said that, as we read the words of the Sermon on the Mount, we need to position ourselves in the early congregation to which it was addressed. But now, let’s move from there and go back to the mountainside where it was first delivered. We’re listening to Jesus now, and when we do that, we remember that, when he uttered these words, he was just Jesus, not Jesus Christ. Christ was not his family name; his parents were not Joseph and Mary Christ. He would later be hailed as the Christ, but that was later. On the mountain, he’s just Jesus and he was not, after all, a Christian. On the mount, there are no Christians, just Jews, poor folks who have answered the call to follow Jesus. His words were (and still are) for any and all who would follow him and his way of just and loving life.
His call to bear good fruit cannot be limited to some small segment of humanity that has isolated itself from the rest of humankind within the protective insulation of neat doctrines by which God is reduced to a manageable proposition. Wherever people leave their nets and follow Jesus’ way of life, they are our sisters and brothers, fellow citizens of God’s kingdom on earth, whatever their tribe or tongue.

My ministry in the Shadyside Church of Pittsburgh included a radio program which, allegedly, was the oldest religious broadcast in the history of radio. One of my most interesting discoveries was that one of my regular listeners was a Jewish rabbi. I became aware of this when, for some reason, he sent me a sermon he had delivered on Rosh Hashanah. It contained a wonderful story, and so I phoned to tell him how much I enjoyed his sermon and to ask permission to use his story in one of my sermons, giving him proper credit for the story. “No problem,” he replied. “I use lots of your material.” “How can you possibly do that?” I asked, “So much of my material seems specifically Christian.” “It’s easy,” he said, “I just take it and make it Jewish.”

But isn’t there a deep truth in what he was saying? A true word is a true no matter who utters it. A just action is a just action regardless of who performs it. Does God look down from heaven to see if people are wearing the right label? Back in 1961, during my first pastorate in Newburgh, NY, when a politically aspiring City Manager was harassing the unemployed poor and elderly folk whose only sin was that their life savings had run out and they were dependent upon welfare, few clergymen raised their voices in defense of the dignity of the poor. I couldn't find one other Protestant pastor who would speak out against the manufactured statistics and blatant lies of the City Manager. But Rabbi Kahan joined me. Did it matter to God that his “badge of faith” was the Star of David and not the Cross of Calvary? If he spoke with prophetic courage on behalf of God’s poor, what difference did his label make? Melville might have written of him, “Better a courageous Jew than a cowering Christian!” Whatever may be the complex questions about relationships between Jews and Christians, as well as between Christians and persons of other faiths, there is one truth that cannot be denied: a religious faith that does not result in a righteous life has no value. And so Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

So what kind of a church does this call us to be? When I was out in California visiting my three children and grandchildren, I was reading the local newspaper of the Ojai valley where my daughter Holly lives, surrounded by those majestic mountains amidst which the old movie classic, Lost Horizons, was filmed. I came upon the most interesting church ad. I’m guessing that it’s a non-denominational church, one of those stereotypical, whacko California free-style churches in which my blazer and necktie would identify me as a stuffy stranger from some “frozen chosen” denominational church back East. However, I liked their ad. Here are some excerpts:

Hey You! Don’t worry, this isn’t an advertisement about why you should come to our church because we have the “truth,” the “right” doctrine, the “best” programs and all around most “spiritual” people. If anything, you should know we are just like you, and that means fairly screwed up. We are a community filled with people who have checkered pasts, current addictions, skeletons in the closet, consistent struggles with guilt, shame, fear, anger, and urges we’d like to keep to ourselves. Maybe you don’t have any of these struggles…Then again, maybe you struggle with pride, conceit, think too much of yourself and too little of others. We’re doing our best to be honest with our inadequacies, to encourage and help each other limp along, as well as celebrate. Really, we’re simply trying our best to follow Jesus, not Christianity. The institution of Christianity has done much good in the world, but it’s also done horrible damage. Jesus has done only good. We strive to be his healing hands in a broken world. Come stumble along with us as we try to be better human beings, trying to make the world a better place, reaching out a helping hand just as Jesus reached out to us.

It sounded good, almost too good to be true. Maybe it was just a “come on,” I wondered. Upon arriving home, I checked their website and, yes, I was disappointed. The profile of their pastor contained a lot of “jocks for Jesus” stuff about his athletic career, and their statement of faith was a tired, outdated catalog of doctrinal shibboleths – certainly not written by the person who wrote the ad. However, it made me wish that, somehow, somewhere, there might be a church like the one described in the ad, a gathering of ordinary folks who welcome any and all whose intention is simply to follow the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, a church whose holy Table is open to all, whether cannibals or Christians, who hunger and thirst after righteousness.


SOME QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION OR DISCUSSION

1. A sermon like this can be deceivingly simple. Christians and/or churches that set out to “get back to basics” often find that the basics are not that simple. A church whose bulletin board advertises it as a “Bible-believing church, whose only creed is Christ,” will, sooner or later, discover that its members cannot reach agreement upon exactly what the Bible teaches or exactly who Jesus is. The “true” Presbyterians who left the Presbyterian Church to form a new, scripturally faithful denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, were soon beset by a controversy that resulted in still another denomination, the Bible Presbyterian Church. The Amish, who strive to live a plain life, have found that they cannot agree about “how plain is plain.” Different Amish communities disagree over what constitutes a plain buggy or a plain kind of buckle. If, as the sermon, temptingly suggests, we were to try becoming a church whose central goal was to follow Jesus’ way of life as it is described in the Sermon on the Mount, what difficulties might we encounter? As you reread the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1 – 7:29), where might we find ourselves in the greatest disagreement?

2. Creeds often focus upon what we believe, leaving us to figure out the details of how we will live. Try writing a personal creed for your own life that describes how you intend to live your life as a follower of Jesus. As you do this, try to incorporate some of Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount into your statement. Also, try being specific, making your personal creed one that confronts some of the actual difficulties that a person (or family) encounters in seeking to follow Jesus in our modern, digital age.

3. What creeds of the church, ancient or modern, have been most helpful to you in your personal discipleship? Is there a creed with which you have problems?

4. The sermon makes the rather jarring statement that, when Jesus said that we should love our enemies, he was, literally, “tearing pages out of Hebrew scripture,” indicating that some stories in the Bible deny God’s love as the heavenly Father of all his children. If this seems to be an overstatement, try reading 1 Samuel 15:1-3. Then wrestle with this question: Do you think that God ever uttered such a destructive commandment to Samuel? Or are we to understand it, according to one rabbinical scholar, as “what Samuel heard, but not what God s

A Journey with Mother Mary

Selected Gospel Lections
Mother’s Day – 3rd Easter
Elizabeth M. Deibert

O God, by your nurturing Spirit tell us what we need to hear, and show us what we ought to do, to follow Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

We’re doing something a little different this Sunday. Instead of following the usual lectionary readings, I decided that for Mother’s Day, we would walk through the life of Mother Mary. The only time of year when we think about Mary is on the third Sunday of Advent each year, as we anticipate the birth of Christ, and usually read the Magnificat, part of which we used as our Call to Worship today.

It is my opinion, and I believe I stand in strong company, that we Protestants over-reacted to Roman Catholicism on two points. First, we shifted from weekly communion, which had been the practice of the church for 15 hundred years. Secondly, we over-reacted to Roman Catholic devotion to Mary.

We have neglected Mary, ignored the fact that she is the supreme example of human faithfulness. Jesus, being of two natures – divine and human – is the one for whom and in whom we live, but Mary is the one to whom we can truly relate. She was fully human, as are we, yet she was so very receptive to the Word of God that she was able to give birth to God in human flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ.

(slide) So for all of us, male and female, Mary is a model of trust in God. On this Mother’s Day, as we are still in the season of Easter joy, let us ponder the life of Mary, from the time she was visited by an angel, to the birth of Jesus, to his childhood and ministry, and finally to his death, resurrection, and ascension. Let us hear these stories, not as we usually do, from the perspective of Jesus or of his disciples or of the crowd, but let’s think about Mother Mary, what she was thinking, how she was feeling, and the challenge she had to be faithful through all these experiences as Mother of God. Theotokos in Greek means God-bearer.

Hear now the Annunciation from Luke 1:28-38 (slide):

Jane Luke 1:28-38 "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. …35 The 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….38 Then 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.

Perplexed and fearful, but Mary found favor with God, and was overtaken by Holy Spirit and gave birth to a Holy Child, the Son of God. Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary was receptive. Hear now the affirmation of her cousin Elizabeth, when the two unexpectedly pregnant women come together. Luke 1:39-42 (slide)

Richard Luke 1:39-42 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

Mary’s womb bore the eternal God, in human form. She is called more spacious than the heavens for that reason. Is it possible to be the God-bearer and not to be changed by that? The birth narratives are the most familiar to us, but let us listen for clues about Mary’s life. Hear Luke 2:16-19 (slide)

Tricia Luke 2:16-19 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

She hears from shepherds that angels are announcing his birth. She treasures these words and ponders them. Would that we would do the same when we hear what the angels and the saints through generations have said about this amazing birth. If we would just take time at home, even when we are exhausted as Mary surely was, to ponder these words. If we would just stay the one extra hour for Lively Learning so we can ponder the words of scripture, then we might be more like Mary, blessed, full of faith and grace.

All good parents are protective of their young children. People who believe they have a very gifted or special children, are even more so. You can imagine the fear of Mother Mary when she and Joseph learn that Herod is killing baby boys. So they have the courage to travel by night to a foreign land, to keep their boy safe.
Matthew 2:11-14 (slide)

Chip Matthew 2:11-14 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. 13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt.

We have but one story of Jesus childhood, in fact, he is nearly a teen when his parents lose him in the temple. Nearly every mother and father have a story of forgetting the child or losing the child. Mary and Joseph traveled for three days and did not realize their son was missing. I guess they were traveling in groups from Jerusalem, and perhaps the adolescents would walk together. But turns out Jesus was lingering with the religious experts in the temple. Luke 2:43 -51 (slide)

Elizabeth Luke 2:43-51 43 When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it… 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." 49 He said to them, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" 50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

Mary was upset. Well, remember they had walked three days journey and had to turn back. I remember one time Emily left her brand new favorite jacket at a rest area, and we had to drive an hour backwards in a 7 hour trip. I was not happy. I remember a few nights when my children did not make curfew or did not call back on their cell phones. That was just hours. Mary was worried for three days!

For three days, she had no idea where he was. Sort of reminds us of the three days which come at his death. By the end of this story, Mary is calm and treasuring these things in her heart. She is a reflective person, clearly.

We move now into Jesus’ life of ministry to his first recorded miracle – water into wine. (slide) I am guessing that Mary was surprised at what her son could do. On the other hand, perhaps she thought he was capable of fixing the problem, as she reports it to him. John 2:3-5

Jane John 2:3-5 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." 4 And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." 5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

Jesus gives a very typical youthful adult response to his mother. Mom, it’s not my fault. What do you want me to do? But Mary persists in her confidence and respectful behavior toward her son, telling the servants, “Listen to him and do whatever he tells you.”

This was only the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, but Mary is quickly learning she must let go of her son. When she comes to see him, he is surrounded by crowds. A message gets through to him, but he makes it clear that family is taking on new meaning as he engages his ministry. Luke 8:19-21 (slide)

Richard Luke 8:19-21 19 Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. 20 And he was told, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you." 21 But he said to them, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it."

I think that would have hurt. Doesn’t he care that his own mother is waiting outside? Come on Jesus, I nursed you. I changed your diapers and this is the respect I get? But Mary did get it. She carried on with doing the word of God. This was her life – to hear and do the word of God. But she thought her son was destined for a princely life, not a ghastly death. She celebrated all his miracles and the teaching which drew crowds. She was proud of her boy.

But she also heard the grumbling of priests and scribes. She knew Jesus was in danger. Can you image how much more she worried and prayed now than she did when her 12 year old was missing. Think of Mother Mary in the courtyard with Peter, as Jesus is being questioned. Think of Mother Mary as the crowd is shouting, “Crucify him!” And she’s saying “not my boy, not my boy.” But they did anyway, and faithful Mary took herself to stand there in solidarity with him, to weep over him. John 19:25-27 (slide)

Tricia John 19:25-27 Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." 27 Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be very difficult. Sometimes we forget how painful these holidays can be for people. Maybe they’ve lost a child. Maybe they have or had a terrible relationship with their own mother or father. Maybe they always wanted to be parents and it never happened for them.

I have a pastor friend who finds these two months really hard. He and his wife have an adult son, who has paranoid schizophrenia. They find it hard to talk about, because people do not know how to respond. These devoted parents have done all they know to do for fifty years to help him. But despite all their attempts at offering help, their son lives on the street. It is agonizing. It is more agonizing, when people brag about their own children on days like this. They wish they could feel proud, but instead they just feel helpless -- unable to help their son. Same way Mary must have felt when Jesus was hanging on a cross.

But mental illness and death will never get the last word. God’s redeeming power will win in the end. The life of Christ will triumph over the death that still chases us. We assume Mother Mary might have been with the women who faithfully went to the tomb on Easter morning. Hear the end Luke 23-and the beginning of Luke 24:

Chip Luke 23:55-24:5 The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. 56 Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments…. 24:1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. (slide) 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

What an unimaginable ending to Mary’s sad story. Her son is alive, but not only that, her son’s life brings life to all people. All the glorious things that were said at his birth really came true. Jesus has risen from the dead and so new life and hope has come to Mary, and to all of us. Death has lost its sting. Where O death is your victory? Don’t you know Mary wants to see Jesus and touch him, even more than Thomas did, not to help her believe but to bring her joy.

It would seem that Mother Mary did see her son again because just after he ascends, we read that the disciples and the women, including Mother Mary, were together in Jerusalem. Hear this story from Acts 1: (slide)

Elizabeth Acts 1:13-14 13 When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

Constantly devoted to prayer. Pondering these things in her heart. Treasuring these words. Going with him all the way to the cross and the grave. Mary was faithful. She was willing. She was obedient. She listened to God. She was the first disciple.

Sometimes when we read the stories of scriptures and so many of the main characters are men, we forget about the faithful women. Supreme among all the faithful was the Mother of our Lord, Mary, the God-bearer. Mary demonstrates the perfect human life. From Mary we learn to give birth to Christ in our lives, and to follow his way, even in fearful and dark times.

Blessed be the Mother of all Mothers, Holy Mary. Let us pray now, not to Mary, but with Mary, requesting her prayers for us, just as we might ask of our own Mothers in heaven or on earth:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Christ's Peace for Our Doubts

John 20:19-31
2nd Sunday of Easter
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Christ, be our peace, that we might see you, hear you, touch you, and know you as we hear your Word and as we live accordingly. Amen.

Every year on the second Sunday of Easter, we get to step back from our Easter exuberance “Alleluia! He’s risen!”, and hear the concerns of Doubting Thomas and be reassured again that Christ is indeed alive and breathing peace on us, no matter what we see or don’t see in the world around us. Christ is always bringing peace into the dark of our doubt to drive it away.

The crowds should come on the second Sunday of Easter. Especially at Peace we should love this resurrection story. Peace, Joy, Peace Doubt, Peace, Faith. Peace is everywhere. We love exchanging the peace of Christ and really meaning it, not just being friendly, but hoping with our words and our attitudes of forgiveness to change lives. So we say with all depth, “Peace be with you.” We mean it. We don’t exchange pleasantries in that moment. We share peace. Our recyclable grocery bags say it and our business cards say it. “Peace to you.” If I tried to distill the one message I have for the world into one word, it would be “peace.” If I wanted to communicate one thing Christ was bringing to all people, it would be in the Hebrew sense of the word, shalom, wholeness – Peace. If there one thing I hope my life will embody in the world – in the way I live with others – it is summarized in peace. What a great name for a church – Peace!

I invite you now on this Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the end of a week full of the worst string of tornadoes in US history, in a year of total upheaval in the Middle East and natural disaster horrors in Japan, to hear again Christ coming in the door to offer peace.



John 20:19-31 (NRSV)

19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So 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.”

26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But 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.


Let’s talk about Jesus’ first visit with the disciples:

They were afraid. The doors were locked. Jesus came in and said, “Shalom.” This shalom is for them, to calm them, to reassure them. Then he showed them the evidence of his wounds. They rejoice in seeing him. He gives them peace again, and with it a charge. The second “shalom” is the one they and we must bear to the world. Jesus was the one sent. Now he is sending them, but first he breathes on them, the wind-breath-spirit (pneuma) is given them. We take his peace into our souls and by his Spirit we bear peace to the world. But that’s not all. Jesus then gives the power of forgiveness – a huge gift and burden. Do you know the power of forgiveness? Do you know the release you can give yourself and others by offering forgiveness, especially to those who do not deserve it. That’s what Christ offers us – that is the essence of his peace – and he says, as the Father sent me, so I send you. Give people the peace of your forgiveness.

Know Christ’s peace in the depths of your soul, so you can dig deep into that peace, when you’ve been hurt, and offer forgiveness to others. There is great peace in laying our bitterness aside. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. To love and forgive others is possible only to the degree we have received Christ’s peace. To fully embrace Christ’s peace is a process of trusting his love to be the One thing that completes us, that fills us, that heals us. Sometimes we want to hold back parts of ourselves, not believing that God is what we most need in that deep needy part. Sometimes the deep needy part of us wants the quick feel-good. Sometimes we want to reserve a little spot for our justified anger or blame toward others. We want to reserve that spot as point of pride, thinking too highly of ourselves. We’re like a kid with a dirty scrape, not wanting it to be cleaned. What we need is for Christ’s breath to enter that spot and heal it. Then we will have more peace for others, more forgiveness.

But we like to cling to our doubts about Christ’s peace. We like to think there are some wounds he cannot heal, so we hold them back. We like to cling to our doubt because doubt or skepticism is the intellectual way these days, and we educated people value our minds. Smart people question things like Thomas did. Smart people need hard evidence. Science. Fact. Evidence. Unless I see the evidence of his wounds and touch them, I will NOT believe. Thomas is not just saying to his friends, “I wish I had seen Jesus with you. I’m having a hard time believing.” No, he was exercising his will in doubt. I will not believe. Like Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie, Bucket List when the two guys talk of faith and Jack says with a smirk, “Oh, I admire you people with faith. I just can’t get my head around it. And Morgan Freeman wryly responds, “Well, maybe your head’s in the way.”

Here are some Doubting Thomas declarations for us this week: I will not believe there is a loving God when tornadoes rip through neighborhoods killing people so randomly. I will not believe there is a loving God when tsunamis flood well-prepared cities in Japan, and leave people dangerously exposed to nuclear radiation. I will not believe there is a loving God when fourteen month old Adrian Littlejohn is dying of cancer.

But you can still believe, even when these tradegies rip your heart out. But did you see in the East County Observer Adrians daddy said? Coach Littlejohn of Lakewood Ranch said, “If the good Lord wants to take my son, He will, and if He doesn’t, then He won’t.” Reminds me of Job. Job’s final answer was beautifully sung by Peggy Losee last week “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand on the last day.”

Of course, the best thing about this story of Doubting Thomas is that he does not continue to doubt. Jesus comes back again to the disciples, seemingly just to bring more peace – peace enough for Thomas to believe. Was it peace or evidence that made him believe? Peace be with you, Thomas. Peace to all the doubters of the world. Here – you said you need to touch and see. Okay. Do it. Don’t doubt, though, believe!

And Thomas’ stubborn agnosticism falls away. The peace of Christ overwhelms him and heals him, and he utters a most profound statement of faith: My Lord and My God.

But was it the evidence or the peace that changed him, I ask you? And just when all the doubters are saying, “Well, Thomas got the evidence, so of course, he began to believe,” Jesus challenges us by saying that believing without seeing is the better place to be. Blind faith? Is this a call to blind faith? Is there more peace in a faith that trusts enough, even in the dark of not knowing.

What evidence do we have that someone who dies is not gone forever? What evidence do we have that we will be reunited one day? No hard and fast evidence – the kind the world likes. But we are blessed, ever more blessed to believe in the Resurrection of the body and the life everlasting with no evidence but the witness of scripture, the church through the generations, and our faith.

Jesus is understanding of Thomas, but not willing to leave Thomas where he is. He charges him to believe. I think believing is an act of our will, more than an ascent of the heart or mind. I think believing often comes in response to an experience of the peace Christ is constantly offering.

I think that every time you walk into this worship service, Christ is here too, pouring out peace in your soul, and hoping you will take notice and exercise your will in believing. Sometimes the doors are locked to your heart, but he comes in anyway.

Sometimes you are not present with your fellow followers of Christ and we have a profound experience of peace which you miss, but he will come again. Indeed he is with you always. And his message always is “Peace be with you. Do not doubt but believe.” And once you are rejoicing in faith, his message is “Peace. Receive the Holy Spirit. As my Father sent me, so I send you.” So let us be at peace, forgive, believe, and share the peace we have been so graciously given.

Our Lord and our God, we thank you for this peace which now floods our souls. We believe your love is healing every doubting dark corner of our hearts. Renew us in your love, that we might forgive, believe, and share your peace with this hurting world.