Jesus In My Boat!

Text: Mark 4:35-41

Focus: Faith

Function: To comfort people during this hard time

Form: Musings

Intro: Well, I am glad I waited on this sermon, because I had it down, but then, I needed to change it due to the terrorist attack in Charleston, SC.

I had one of those days Thursday, with no social media. A day where I just disconnected so that I could spend time with God.

There was an heaviness in my spirit that began about 2 in the afternoon. I thought it was the weather, but as I ponder it, I think it was the collective groans of everyone that I love, everyone with whom my spirit is somehow connected as the news began to dawn on them.

I didn't check news or anything until 5:30 and then, it was straight to the Church to get on my face before God here in the sanctuary and cry out for God to heal this land of its racism.

Do we not all wonder why God doesn't just stop these people from this kind of evil?

There is so much angst in our hearts. It is a call for us to redouble our efforts to preach the love and peace of Jesus Christ to this tired old world.

We ask ourselves if God cares at times like this.

And strangely enough, the same question was raised in our text this morning.

When the apostles looked at the storm, they were afraid.

Jesus was with them, and Jesus was not afraid.

Hmmm. (pause)

Verse 7b: “The disciples woke him up and said, `Teacher, don't you care that we are about to die?'”

Don't you care?

Don't raise your hands, but that is a common question asked by people during times of tragedy.

“God, don't you see that?”

“God, didn't you see that?”

“Do you care?”

How, does God care.

There was this young man, a friend of my daughter during High School.

He was a self-described atheist.

And he was really gifted.

He wrote an underground newspaper at the High School.

And he was angry. Not violent, like Wednesday night, but angry.

His writing was profound. It was brilliant, it reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. However, it was also full of colorful metaphors and because of that, the school wanted to expel him.

My daughter showed me what he wrote and asked me if it was worthy of expelling.

I saw the potential in the young man. We had another Ordained preacher in the congregation, a professor at Anderson University and heavily involved in Republican politics in the county.

Jerry, the preacher and I went to the school board and defended the child because of his giftedness.

That summer, our youth pastor did a youth event that was pretty edgy.

And because people from our church supported the young man, he came and listened to the gospel message.

In the early spring he ran a stop sign and was killed.

I did the funeral.

Funerals for children are really hard.

The same question is there, and everyone, everyone is asking it, “Where is God in all this?”

And also, to me: “How can YOUR GOD let this happen? Isn't God supposed to be all-powerful? Isn't YOUR GOD supposed to love and care for us?”

And, those times when preachers speak for God in tragedy are the best and the worse of our times as preachers.

The funeral went well.

4 weeks later the father of the young man walked into my office.

He was angry and grieving and he said this to me: “Pastor, I have just one question for you. I am not a religious man. I am a good man, but I don't have much time for religion. I don't pray much. As a matter of fact, I really only have ever had one prayer my whole life. One prayer. (his voice raised) Do you want to know what that is?”

I saw the man trembling, on the brink of tears, he was emotionally exhausted and completely broken. Although I feared his answer, I asked him to tell me.

“God! I prayed...” said the man. “Keep my kids safe! Why, pastor, did God not answer the only prayer I have ever repeated to him time and time again?”

I might as well of babbled my lips like this (flip lips with finger).

I had no excuse for God. And, God doesn't need an excuse for what God does.

And yes, I believe that God is love and God can, could have, saved that man's son. And I didn't know why God didn't do that.

I felt the same way as the father did.

Now I know that God loves that man and his son.

My only salient answer, after I stumbled around in his grief for a while was this: “I am convinced that Jesus is weeping with you also.”

I am convinced of that. And, I believe that I was able to convince the man of that.

I wish I could understand the mysteries of faith.

I have seen God heal the sick, I have seen the blind receive their sight and the lame walk again at the prayer ministry that I have seen God do.

God is able and sometimes God chooses not to.

And again that question the disciples asked Jesus comes to mind: “don't you care?”

And of course, the answer is, was and will always be a resounding: YES!

God didn't kill that man's son to get his attention. God didn't kill that man's son because he was angry, rebellious or even that he described himself as an atheist.

God didn't kill that man's son.

In the midst of death and tragedy, God cares. God does.

Jesus was in the boat.

And for a moment, one could infer from the story that God has placed God's success in the same boat as us.

Of course Jesus cared, He was in the boat!

The question, because Jesus was in the boat, might seem inane.

But here is the thing, Jesus, is in our boat.

As we heard the story, we sighed in sorrow, anguish, anger, pain and brokenness. We care. Almost everyone cares. God cares more and I am sure that God is not defeated by this.

Alone, the stories of love and forgiveness coming from the families is one of the greatest witnesses to Christ I can see.

I can see God's loving hand in that. Praise God's name! Amen?

God cares.

And today's lesson tells us that if God so chooses, God can change the circumstance.

And thank God that I do not have to justify why God does and doesn't change the circumstance.

I don't think God ever causes bad things to happen as a form of warning, but at times like this, just like at a funeral, we take time to ponder, to listen and to seek God's face.

If there is one lesson we can learn it is this, racism is still not over.

Jim Wallis posted this on Friday: “...The deep wounds of racism, America's original sin, still linger in our society, our institutions, and in our minds and hearts — sometimes explicitly, but far more pervasively through unconscious bias. Wednesday's terrorist act is the latest manifestation of this lingering sin....”

The change must come from the grass roots up. This is time for the Church to speak up more and more on behalf of everyone who is marginalized by our society.

God cares. God could have changed this. God changes things on behalf of the prayers of God's people.

(look up) God help us!

Fearless!

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17

Focus: Faith over fear

Function: To help people see that fear is not from God.

Form: GOK (God only knows)

Intro: Last week we looked at what it means to be carrying around the death of Jesus in our bodies.

It means, simply put, that we have the ability to choose to live sacrificially for others and God or to live to please ourselves.

Paul gives a great “therefore” after this passage. In his great “Therefore,” we learn that the primary mission of the Church, the body of Christ, the family of God, is to be God's agents of reconciliation between God and humanity and between other humans.

I would submit that every time we are doing that, we are serving God. That is along with Jesus' great teaching in Matthew Chapter 25 that deals with caring for the sick, the poor, the naked, the prisoner and I would add, anybody who is marginalized by our society.

Jesus, remember, was “the friend of sinners.” Because of that, the powers that be, especially the religious authorities, decided that Jesus was not worth listening to.

After all, if he was such a great prophet, one of them mused privately, then Jesus would know how evil some other people would be and Jesus would not associate with such a person.

They got it all wrong. They got it backwards.

Jesus was telling them that it was those who admit that they are broken and in need of restoration with whom He spend His time. Jesus did not spend a lot of time with those who were so proud that they thought they were better than others.

There is a principle here.

It is the broken, the one who says to God “I need you” that gets the privilege of living in God's family here on earth, right now, in the Church.

Those religious people who cry out how bad certain other people are, are the ones who are missing it.

It was true then, and it was true today.

I submit that anybody who is pointing their finger at another and crying out “morally impure” is part of the problem, not Jesus' solution.

However, I just did it myself.

But that is the thing, Jesus has called us to be agents with Him, on behalf of God almighty, to reconcile people to God and to each other.

And it is pretty simple when we see that.

But, it is a risk.

And this passage, in the prelude to the great calling to be those who reconcile the world to God and each other, is a call for us to do it without fear.

Fear gets in the way.

What are we afraid of?

Rejection?

Loss of Community with those with whom we contradict?

Loss of security here on this earth?

These may be some of the issues that keep us shrinking back from our calling.

There may be more, but in my experience, these seem to be the big three.

And this passage addresses them.

There is a command, a principle that we will do well to remember. Verse 7: “we walk by faith, not by sight.”

This addresses the fear of “loss of security.” It reminds me of something that my brother said to me when my eldest child was going through some major medical problems.

He had 17 surgeries on his right leg the whole time he was growing up with us. He actually graduated high school on his crutches. He spent significant portions of his childhood on crutches.

He has a congenital birth defect that is similar to a birthmark, but instead of being on the skin, it is in his right leg.

Up until 1986, doctors never successfully treated it.

He was in the first grade and the doctor, after consulting with Mayo Clinic, called me and informed me that his condition had never been successfully treated and it would most likely result in an amputation right below his right knee.

How do you tell a first grader that news?

I took him to the Muncie mall to get some ice cream.

Of course, he didn't understand. He just looked at me with those big eyes and told me that he trusted me and whatever I decided would be okay.

This was his leg we were dealing with.

We were sitting there, in the middle of winter and I noticed a rather handsome man walking with the energetic gait of a runner.

He was wearing short pants in the middle of winter.

And I noticed a terrycloth band right above his knee. It looked like a sweat band, but it was in an odd place.

As he got closer, and I was praying for help from God to comfort and inform my son, I began to realize that his right leg was a prosthetic from the base of his thigh downward.

Yet, one couldn't tell it easily.

He was normal, happy, and so comfortable with his condition that he was willing to display it.

I quickly called him over, told him privately that I was just then explaining to my son that we will most likely have to amputate his leg and could he offer words of encouragement to my son?

He did.

But I think God sent that man along for me.

He was living a normal, fulfilled, athletic life.

I honestly think that on that day, I actually met an angel, sent by God to comfort me and my son.

Here is the thing, No matter what happens, God is in control.

So, I mentioned my brother. He called me to comfort me and he said this to me: “What is the worse thing that could happen?”

I thought, well, he could die on the operating table.

But his answer was this, to me: “Nothing can happen that God will not take you through.”

And then I remembered the angel, God went the extra mile to comfort us. My son still has his leg and as it turns out, the experimental technique that we tried was being tried all over and with great success. Praise God.

I thought my security, and my sons, rested in my own strength and power.

But this scripture tells us that God is in control, even of eternity, and if we are looking for security, then look to heaven and our eternal reward.

I am not saying that we live lives for ourselves here on earth and get heaven on top of it.

I am quoting Jesus where He tells us to lay up treasure in heaven.

Security. We are told every day that we need more and if we have more, we will be secure.

I remember when I was a traveling salesman and a young Christian. I was listening to what was then the beginning of this movement of shock radio that was complaining about some sort of lack of freedom or something.

A lot of that, from both sides of the aisle is designed to get us afraid, not trusting in God, so that we get angry and move to their political positions.

I heard this younger woman talking about her finances. She said, my kids are still young and we already have over $200,000 saved for their college tuition. We have .5 million in our own retirement, but I am afraid that we do not have enough. I kept hearing her say “I am afraid...” And yet, compared to me, she was well off and had no reason to be afraid.

But people let fear grip them.

The Lord's prayer is simple in this regard: “Give us this day our daily bread...”

It is a commitment to trust God today and be satisfied.

But we want security. I want security.

I am not talking about being irresponsible with finances. Not at all. But we need to rest in God.

I mentioned two other things. Loss of community and the fear of rejection.

I remind myself of the introduction of verse 14: “we are ruled by the love of Christ.”

Ruled by love.

I like that principle.

We are not ruled by fear.

I have a friend in a Church near London. It is in a neighborhood similar to Brooklyn.

There are gangs in his neighborhood. I asked him if he excluded gang members from his outreach ministry. He responded “the only people we exclude are those who exclude themselves.”

It took me a while to unwrap his statement until he explained it like this.

If a kid comes to youth group and chooses to act out outside of participation in the group, in a way that is disruptive, then that child has excluded himself and when he is ready to join the community, he is welcome back.

Some people exclude themselves. The Pharisees who didn't like Jesus because Jesus is a “friend to sinners” excluded themselves from the family of God by applying rules to who was in and who was out that were contrary to Jesus' teaching.

Let us not do the same.

There may be a loss of community. To take a third way, Christ's way, around the hot button issues of today: politics, homosexuality, racism, feminism, war, urban justice, economic justice and the like is not going to win popularity contests with either political party.

For example, with homosexuality, it has become a political issue wrapped up in a pseudo-Christian issue. But I am not willing to stoop to the level of letting the kingdoms of mankind decide for me. I am going to look at the gospels, look at what Jesus taught, read the epistles and interpret them in light of the teachings of Jesus, instead of Jesus in light of the teachings of Paul, and right there, possibly alienate a big portion of popular theology.

But sometimes, popular theology gets most of its strength from anger and emotions, like it is today and it gets mixed in with another hot button, our Patriotism and all of a sudden, neither side represents Jesus anymore.

But we never exclude anyone except those who, like the Pharisees choose, to separate themselves from us.

For me, I will never take a stand against any group of people, I will always take a stand for Jesus. Never against. Always FOR!

Dead Men (And Women!) Walking

Text: 2 Corinthians 4:6-12

Focus: Living sacrificial lives

Function: To help people embrace the idea that we are God's and God does with us as God pleases.

Form: Storytelling

Intro:

I guess as I get older, I realize just how much about God, Jesus and the bible I really don't know.

I actually love to write theology. I love to spend a day in prayer contemplating some Biblical truth, principle, or esoteric question about the nature of God, faith, humanity, justice, etc..

And again, the more I ponder, the less conclusions I make, and the more I wonder in amazement about God, humanity, and God's love for humanity.

In all these years, I have learned a few things. Two, simply. God loves us. I love God.

A lot has changed from when I was a young theologian who was convinced that no one really knew the bible and without me, they would remain in darkness.

I used to give three points, with a promise that if we learned, or avoided, or practiced some sort of truth or idea, we could improve ourselves as Christians.

Now, I realize that most of us have heard, if not every, then most passages of scripture expounded upon.

Charles Swindoll once said that the biggest challenge of the American Preacher was to give people something new from the text when they have heard it before also.

But we keep at it.

And we keep at it for good reasons.

1). The Bible is still always fresh and new to me.

2). We forget.

3). The Bible commands us preachers to constantly remind people to do good works.

Actually, I like the way the King James puts it: provoke one another to good works.

To Provoke means to get people emotionally involved in doing good works.

Sometimes we need encouragement.

But since the longer I minister, the more I realize that I don't know, the less dogmatic I have become.

Instead, I would share a way that I have experienced a passage of scripture with the hope that people can see some part of themselves in it in order to make a similar decision to do, or not do something.

This is a difficult passage in the sense that it sets itself apart, or it sets ministers apart, as people who live their lives for the good of others, even sacrificially on behalf of others.

Of course, with preachers, it may be that they all have a Messiah complex.

But this passage isn't talking about preachers, it is talking about us.

And it is talking about how Paul lived his life in service to others.

It almost seems that all the time he was considering his actions and their impact on others more than he was thinking about his own concerns or needs.

And the message he preaches is that at times he has been tempted to despair, he has been tempted to give up, he has been tempted to chuck it all away and take his own leisure.

I guess it all stems from verse 10: ¹⁰At all times we carry in our mortal bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life also may be seen in our bodies.

So, I titled this sermon, “Dead Men -and women- Walking.”

Ministers live a different life. And, we are all ministers. The classic Brethren Phrase on top of bulletins across the US today is this: Every member a minister.

So, how do we experience this “carrying the death of Christ inside of us?”

Dead Man Walking is the title of a movie that starred Susan Sarandon as a nun. It is a true story of Sister Helen Prejean ministry to a death row inmate as she provided spiritual care for him up until he was executed for murder.

The nature of the man's crimes were heinous. He was a racist that killed an interracial couple simply because he didn't want his kind with another kind.

And he was to pay the ultimate price for it.

Dead Man Walking became a phrase in that prison, in most prisons, for the condition of a prisoner who is on his final walk to the execution chamber.

He is heavily guarded and covered with bracelets on his wrists, shackles on his waist to prevent his arms from going to his feet and shackles on his feet so that they have to shuffle when they walk.

Because he is about to die, he really has nothing to lose in an escape attempt.

And he is a greater security risk, so they call out the phrase: “Dead Man Walking” in order to warn anyone who is about to encounter him that the man is potentially dangerous.

The movie depicts the sorrow the man who victimized others feels about his crime, his repentance, his reluctant acceptance of his very stiff penalty and the Nun's attitude toward the fact that she has to show Christ's unconditional love for a man that she, or at least me, would not have an hard time allowing myself to judge, even hate.

Human nature compels us to take sides create “acceptable prejudices” even though Jesus commands us to love everyone, even our enemies.

And the movie really got to me because in one sense, a big part of my life's calling has been to correct the racist narrative that indicates that somehow black people are less just because they are black.

It has been an huge part of my life.

So, I was alert during the entire movie.

And a few months after I saw the movie, I had an interesting thing happen to me.

A young couple asked me to marry them and they picked Wednesday for the wedding.

That particular Wednesday happened to be Christmas Eve. So, maybe it was for a special reason. I was thinking about the wedding anniversary celebration along with Christmas over the years and thought I would ask the couple about their choice of dates.

It might make the wedding celebration seem less when they had kids and Christmas season was focused on the kids, family, Church celebration and etc and perhaps their anniversary might become second place.

But she gave an entirely different reason for the wedding night. She said: “we are hoping my father does not come to the wedding.”

Now, there is a school of thought, especially when the parents are great, that boys marry someone like their mother and girls someone like their father.

But one thing I have learned in doing marriage counseling, is that good or bad issues with parents can come to the surface in a marriage.

And sometimes, a spouse can over react to something because although it is generally normal behavior, it may be a reminder of a problem in their own emotional development.

And it wasn't that I want to talk them out of it, it is just that issues with parents will play out in the children's lives and it is beneficial to get these things out in the open so that when they say “For better or worse” they can acknowledge that they considered that when they said “I Do.”

So I asked her what the problem was with her father and her answer floored me.

She said, “My dad, and his dad were grand dragons in the KKK.”

Now, you got to know Madison County, Indiana. For years, the KKK was headquartered there for the whole nation. Indiana Governor Edward Jackson was the national head of the KKK in the early 1920's.

Bad things were done by bad people.

I told her that I understood and she said: “Oh no! It gets worse!”

My parents have been divorced for over 10 years and my mom remarried several years ago to a black man.

She was actually afraid that there would be violence at the wedding and reception.

As it turned out, the husband of the maid of honor was a sworn officer and he came in uniform to the wedding, stood at the back and kept his eyes fixed on this woman's own father and grandfather.

That, was unsettling.

After the wedding, everything got busy. The reception was in the basement of the Church. There was no assigned seating. I was busy and when I finally got to sit down, there was only one seat left in the entire fellowship hall.

And it was directly across the table from the father, grandfather and grandmother.

I need to describe her.

She was china white. It looked like she never ever went into the sun. She was dressed in gaudy diamonds and she carried herself with a haughtiness that set something off inside of me.

I literally looked up into heaven and asked God if God has some sort of sense of humor to make me sit there.

And slowly, as I walked to the seat trying to figure out how I was going to get through the next 30 minutes without losing my job because of what I wanted to say, I prayed for help.

And wouldn't you know it? The image of that nun, Sister Helen Prejean, came to my mind.

It was like God was showing me that God loved that man who was now the victim of the state.

And, God reminded me to put aside myself and my own ideological prejudices and be the love of God to these people.

Sister Helen Prejean won the heart, for Christ, of this murderer by showing him Jesus' love.

This scripture came to mind.

This scripture tells me something important: It isn't about me. In this world for us, Christ-Followers, we have to put ourselves aside in order to love others.

I was really reminded of it again when I was back in the prison.

There are 15 team members, we call ourselves: “Their brothers from outside the wall” who serve 30 residents, or “brothers from inside the wall.”

Ideally, if we can make a close, mentoring bond with 2 residents, odds are, everyone resident someone to care for them.

God gave me two men. One was a Nazi.

He was not a Neo-Nazi. He was not part of the prison gang “the Aryan brotherhood.”

He was a real live Nazi, born in Germany.

During the weekend, along with other work by Christians in the prison, he was realizing that Nazism was not at all consistent with this Christian faith to which he was being called.

He was definitely repentant about his former crimes. But he told me something that I just can't get out of my mind.

He told me that his uncle still has the a framed piece of human skin with a Nazi Tattoo that he collected during WWII.

It was really hard to keep my composure when he told me that.

I didn't know if I should call international authorities or throw up. My head actually got dizzy when I contemplated the significance of that statement.

And again, the Lord reminded me of this Scripture and that movie.

Jesus' love can and will save anyone.

And again, I was reminded to put my own “offense” aside and care for this man.

When Jesus said, “Love your enemies, He wasn't just talking about Geo-political enemies, He was also talking about people whose lives represent something that contradicts our faith.

Carrying the death of Jesus is a mindset that says to us and everyone we meet, God's love is powerful enough to make us allies.

It happens when God's Holy Spirit touches the heart of anyone, melts it, and causes that person to give back the same unconditional love that won us to Christ in the first place.

Love covers a multitude of sins.

Now, let us get practical with our own lives and attitudes.

In these last few weeks, a lot of stuff has hit the news.

Both the right and the left were attacked and backed into corners by people, enemies from the other side, who are crying out “foul” as they expose the hypocrisy of the other side.

Let me just say that pointing out the hypocrisy of the “other side” does not imply moral superiority. We all need a Savior. Everyone of us.

Bruce Jenner changed his body to reflect his sexual orientation and a lot of people are upset about it.

Josh Duggar, a world famous Conservative Christian was exposed for molesting several young women.

And the “sides” either loves or hates both of them.

Everyone is taking sides on the validity of their choices, lack of repentance, lack of values, or whatever.

The media have turned these two people into lightning rods for the way people exclude and choose to stop loving others.

But brothers and sisters, we are Christians and we do not have that luxury.

If Christ's love can transform a Nazi, a Neo-Nazi, me and you, it can transform anyone. And if we put ourselves aside for Christ, we can be instruments of that love.

Jesus loves both men. Jesus loves Josh's victims and I do not want to make light of that since I too am a victim like his sisters were. It is horrible and some people never recover from the emotional trauma.

But I am reminded of this, Jesus loves them and we have no other choice but to “carry in our mortal bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life also may be seen in our bodies.”

Caitlyn Jenner, Other marginalized people need us to love them. Josh Duggar is as much of a victim of his own perversion than the girls he victimized.