July 29 sermon: The Man No One Remembers In The Story Everyone Knows

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.” So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house. David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!” Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home. In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”

(2 Samuel 11:1-15)

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     Everyone knows the story of David and Bathsheba. Or, at least, people think they know the story of David and Bathsheba. When I hear people speak about it, it’s talked about almost as a romance. The usual way I’ve heard of relating the story from people who haven’t studied it in depth is that David sees Bathsheba and is completely smitten with her – it’s love at first sight – and nature takes its course and they marry and they live happily ever after. What could be better than a biblical romance? Except that it’s not quite that clear. Rather than a love story, this seems much more like a lust story. If you really listen to the story, David actually comes across as something of a peeping tom, spying on this presumably naked woman while she’s taking a bath. He’s a bit of a stalker, sending someone to get information about her. And many have suggested that – although the passage is worded very diplomatically – this was more of a rape than a romance. The story never tells us that Bathsheba was David’s willing partner. In today’s language – there’s no sign of consent here. And, of course, it’s all followed up with David panicking when he found out that he had made Bathsheba pregnant, desperately trying to get himself off the hook by making it seem as if her husband were the child’s father, and then carefully and deliberately arranging for Bathsheba’s husband to be killed because he couldn’t be convinced to play along with the game David was playing to get himself off the hook for the apparently unwanted and possibly scandalous pregnancy. It’s really not a nice story – but some parts of it we gloss over because it’s so fascinating. As Ronald Peters wrote, “because of human nature's popular fascination with the trappings of wealth, privilege, and power, whenever the biblical story of David and Bathsheba is read or discussed, most attention is quickly drawn to the Hollywood-style glamour or soap opera intrigue that surrounds the salacious, the unfettered license, and the corruption in high places that adorns this tragedy.” And I think that remains typical of how we respond to those with wealth and power today. In one way, the decadent lifestyle appalls us; in another way it fascinates us; part of us wants to turn away, another part can’t get enough. One thing that we can say, though – and one of the first things I thought of when reflecting on what to say about this story – is that it represents quite a contrast with what we read last week. Then we saw Jesus acting with compassion and providing a meal for five thousand hungry people. Today we see David fixated only on himself – his own desires, his own needs and his own well-being. It’s a classic contrast between the selflessness displayed by Jesus and the selfishness of David.

     But I wanted to take a bit of a different direction with this story today. I wanted to think about Uriah – Bathsheba’s husband. The story of David and Bathsheba is a well known story, but Uriah is the unknown character within it. I suspect that if I were to mention David and Bathsheba to people on the street, many would at least know that they’re the central characters in a biblical story. But if I mentioned Uriah? My guess would be that even a lot of faithful Christians would draw a blank. “Uriah?” It actually sounds more like a medical condition or maybe a medical treatment – a drug or some such thing. But Uriah – once you come to know the story – is really the one who makes the story of David and Bathsheba such a tragedy. In a way, he’s the one who gives the story meaning.

     The name “Uriah” in Hebrew means “the Lord is my light.” By naming a child “Uriah,” his parents were expressing the hope that their child would, indeed, devote his life to walking in the light of God. Uriah did that – right up to the end – and yet his faithfulness is usually overlooked in favour of David’s power. The king matters – but one of the king’s soldiers? And Uriah was no general, out on the field directing and winning battles. He was apparently a foot soldier – expendable and easily sacrificed as David displayed by sending him to the front of the line in the hope that he would die. And maybe that’s why Uriah is so easily overlooked and forgotten. David was king of Israel and ancestor of Jesus; Uriah simply died. He’s one soldier who died in a battle probably among many soldiers who died in many battles. But just because Uriah died doesn’t mean that he doesn’t matter. And if the only thing we remember about Uriah is that he died and then we move on to the rest of David’s story then we miss the fact that in a lot of ways Uriah has much more to teach us about how to live than David’s often troubled lifestyle does.

     In today’s troubled world where there’s so much concern about refugees and immigrants, it might be worth noting that Uriah was “Uriah the Hittite.” He was an immigrant who had come to Israel and made a commitment to God, to the nation, to his king and to his fellow Israelites. He became an outstanding citizen and an outstanding man. He had an integrity that made him an object of respect, and he had a transparent faith that must have served as an example to all who knew him, and he had a loyalty to those around him. I mean, without being too crude, let’s be honest here – David brought him back from a war for the sole purpose of giving him time with his wife, thinking that he wouldn’t be able to resist such an opportunity. But Uriah refused. And the story tells us that David “… asked Uriah, ‘Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?’ Uriah said to David, ‘The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!’” And the next night – growing more desperate - David got him drunk. “But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.” That was how devoted he was to his fellow soldiers. If they couldn’t go home to their wives, he wouldn’t go home to his.

     I’ve been talking a lot this month about the need for people to serve as examples to others, and the cost involved in being an example who stands for faith, for God and who lives with loyalty and integrity – the very qualities that Uriah displayed in abundance. But, again, there was a price to be paid for these qualities. David gave up on his plan to get himself off the hook for Bathsheba’s pregnancy because he couldn’t get Uriah to play his part. So, “in the morning David wrote a letter to Joab” - Uriah’s commander - “and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, ‘Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.’” For lack of a better way to put it, David had Uriah murdered – a desperate act from a desperate man who wanted to escape the consequences of his own actions.

     It’s a scenario we still see played out in today’s world over and over again: those with power trying to evade their responsibility for their own actions, and being willing to use and abuse others in order to do it. Uriah was a man of neither power nor prestige. But he was a man of both integrity and faith. And we need people of integrity and faith in the world today – we need them desperately. We need a few Uriah’s in the halls of power. And if we read the story of David and Bathsheba and become fixated on David or fall into the trap of thinking this is some sort of love story, we miss perhaps what Ronald Peters calls the “most important [aspect] of this rather sad tale: the significance and the importance of the man Uriah” - the man no one remembers in the story everyone knows.

July 22 sermon: The Top Ten Things About Christian Ministry

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.

(Mark 6:30-44)

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     I want to start by taking a show of hands. How many late night TV hawks do we have with us today who, years ago, watched either Late Night or The Late Show with David Letterman? I used to watch them from time to time, and if you recall the shows one of the nightly features was Letterman’s “Top Ten” list, when he would give us the “Top Ten” on a whole variety of subjects. In fact, I remember that when he moved from NBC’s “Late Night” to CBS’s “The Late Show” NBC at first tried to prevent him from doing a “Top Ten” list on CBS, claiming that the very idea of a Top Ten list was their “intellectual property.” Well, I don’t want to get either NBC, CBS or David Letterman suing me for stealing their intellectual property, but I do remember that last week I said that Christians sometimes had to be willing to live dangerously and take risks. And since today’s passage is a superb teaching passage that tells us at least ten things about the nature of the Christian ministry we’re all called to share in all I can say is: NBC, CBS, David Letterman – bring on the lawsuit! And I trust that the church will pay for a lawyer to help me defend myself against this theft of intellectual property! Because today I’m going to share “The Top Ten Things About Christian Ministry!”

     Number 10: Ministry is accountable. “The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught.” As this passage begins, Jesus had just commissioned his disciples to go into the surrounding towns and villages and to engage in ministry – teaching and healing those whom they encountered. But it’s important for us to note that even though for the first time Jesus had sent them out on their own, they weren't free agents who had  ablank cheque to do or teach whatever they wanted. They were still accountable to him for what they did. So today’s passage tells us clearly that while the disciples may have been sent out by Jesus, they were still expected to come back to Jesus and to report to him; to tell “him all that they had done and taught.” So today, we are still accountable to both the teaching and example of Jesus that we find in the Gospels, because, after all, it isn’t our ministry that we’re engaged in – it’s his! 

     Number 9: Ministry is work. It’s tough! And no one – least of all Jesus – ever said it would be easy. It was so tough ministering in Jesus’ name that even after they returned to Jesus so much was happening that “they had no leisure even to eat.” Doing Jesus’ work can be overwhelming, and Jesus certainly understood that. It’s why he said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Ministry is tough, but it doesn’t mean that we always have to be on the go. Sometimes we can step back and take some time for ourselves. One of the most important things I was ever taught before I was ordained was that if there’s nothing essential that has to be done, it’s OK to spend some time doing nothing because if you’re always doing the things you could be doing even if they don’t have to be done then you’ll always be doing something and you’ll never really be able to do anything well. If you get the point. Sometimes you just need a break, because ministry can be tough to the point of overwhelming if you let it. And that principle applies to every Christian’s ministry – you have to put your heart and soul into it, but you have to take time for yourself too – because if you’re doing Jesus’ ministry, you’ll find it tough and you’ll need to rest from time to time.

     Number 8: Ministry is everywhere.  The disciples tried to get away but “many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.” So the disciples tried to get to a place where they could have some time to themselves but when they got there, needy people were already waiting for them! Yes, we need time to rest, but then again – ministry has this funny way of finding us. Over the years I've done ministry in places and circumstances where I least expected to be doing ministry - because needs arise, and people with needs appear. It’s often said that opposites attract, and that applies to ministry as much as to anything else. When a person has a need they’re going to be attracted to someone who can meet that need. And if you’re doing Jesus’ ministry, you’re going to find yourself meeting people’s needs – so you always have to be ready.

     Number 7: Ministry is anytime. As much as ministry is everywhere, it’s also anytime. The passage tells us that “it grew late.” The disciples had just returned from their journey, and they were tired and they seemed to think that their ministry should take place only at times that were convenient to them. I remember years ago in a different church I served the doorbell of the manse ringing at 2:00 in the morning, interrupting a blissful sleep. “No,” I thought. I didn’t really want to answer until I looked out the window and saw a police car. A young man had got into the church during the day when it was unlocked, fallen asleep and woke up in the middle of the night. He called the police to tell them because he was afraid he’d be accused of breaking in and stealing. At 2 in the morning I had to get dressed and go to the church to make sure nothing had been damaged or stolen. The the officer asked if we could find any place for the man to sleep. Well, we had a deal with a motel down the street, so I went there and made the arrangements. This was all between 2 and 3 in the morning when I would have rather been in bed. But ministry happens anytime – even when you don’t want it to happen. The response of the disciples to this inconvenience was to try to get Jesus to stop. “Send them away,” they said to him. As far as they were concerned this ministry was going on far too long and it was time to put an end to it. But Jesus wouldn’t send the people away. Simply put, opportunities for ministry come up at the most inconvenient times, and we just have to be ready for them.

     Number 6: Ministry is from the heart. The passage tells us that “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them ...” Ministry is always – and must always be – a thing of the heart, and we develop a heart for ministry by keeping our eyes and ears open and making sure that we’re aware of what’s going on around us. There was a three-fold pattern that Jesus demonstrated here. First, he saw the need; then he felt compassion for the needy; then he responded to the needs of the needy. We don't engage in our ministry to score points, or because it's a duty, or because Jesus tells us to or because we think it's the right thing to do. We engage in ministry because our hearts are touched and moved by the needs we see around us. Jesus had compassion on the people who stood before him; he saw their needs. He didn’t judge them for being needy, he didn’t blame them for having needs and he didn’t turn them away. Jesus was confronted by a need – and he responded from the heart with compassion to the need that he saw in front of him.

     Number 5: Ministry is personal. After their complaint, Jesus said to the disciples, “You give them something to eat.” The disciples were convinced (or at least they were hoping) that the answer to meeting the needs of the crowd gathered around them was to send them to someone else to look after them, but Jesus placed the responsibility squarely on their shoulders. “You give them something to eat.” If you read those words a certain way you might come to the conclusion that Jesus wasn't too happy that his disciples were trying to pass the buck by sending the needy away. He expected them to act. He expected them to take responsibility. If we start to look to others to do what should be our ministry, then what’s the point of being the church? Jesus tells all of us that we are to minister to those around us and not wait for someone else to do it.

     Number 4: Ministry is expensive. Real ministry costs. Jesus’ disciples said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” In the end, of course, they didn’t have to because Jesus provided the food, but the point is that ministry is a valuable thing and we have to be willing to put real resources into it. A lot of churches look at the cost of helping those with needs and they decide to do less because they fear they can't afford to do it. But if we spend all our time counting the cost of doing real ministry – whether the cost is measured in time, money, effort or anything else – then I suspect we’ll never get around to doing real ministry, because doing ministry is an expensive business. I suppose that there will always be those who are going to ask how much it’s going to cost them to be a part of a dynamic and meaningful ministry that actually has an impact on the lives of the people around them, but maybe the real question is how much it's going to cost not to be a part of such ministry. What matters isn't how much ministry is going to cost – what matters is who it’s going to help.

     Number 3: Ministry brings people together. Jesus “ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties.” It's interesting that Jesus had to "order" the disciples to do this. It sounds as if they didn't want to do this - and perhaps we need to keep in mind as I said a few moments ago that they really didn't want to do this in the first place. The crowd was too big, and they were strangers anyway. They weren't disciples. They were "others." Maybe they were taking advantage of Jesus. Maybe they had nothing to offer back. And it's true that - at this moment at least - the people who had followed the disciples and were now gathered around them weren't making any commitment to Jesus and didn’t have anything particular in common with the disciples or with each other – except that they believed that Jesus and the disciples could meet their needs. The symbolism of the people sitting “down in groups of hundreds and of fifties” is that this diverse group of people with different experiences were brought together from different places and they were turned into a community – and what better way to celebrate a community than by sharing a meal!

     Number 2: Ministry is centred on God. “Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves ...” Jesus didn’t want his disciples to be under any illusions about what was about to happen. I've heard two theories about what happened here. One is that it was a supernatural miracle. There were only five loaves and two fish and somehow that little bit of food fed this huge company of people. The other is that some of the crowd had food and others didn't. As people with very little were moved by God to start putting food into a common pool starting with five loaves and two fish - those with more than they needed were struck by God with compassion and threw more into the common pot and what started as five loaves and two fish grew until it could feed thousands. Either way, the point of the story is that this wasn’t simply some really neat magic trick Jesus was going to perform to dazzle those watching like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. What was about to happen was possible only because of God. Our ministry – while it has to be directed outward to others – is first and foremost centred on God. If our ministry doesn’t in some way glorify God or reveal God, then there’s no real point in doing it.

     And the number 1 thing about ministry: when all is said and done, ministry is satisfying! “ And all ate and were filled.” My guess is that it wasn’t just the crowds of people in front of them who “ate and were filled.” I suspect that Jesus and his disciples also shared in the loaves and the fish. The passage does say “all.” So Jesus and his disciples were among those who were satisfied on that day by the ministry they performed. There is satisfaction both for those providing ministry and for those receiving ministry. As we see lives changed, as we see the sick healed, as we see the broken made whole, as we see the grieving comforted, as we see the poor provided for, as we see the oppressed liberated and as we see God glorified by it all, we should feel the greatest satisfaction we’ve ever felt.

     I’ll end with some words from one of the best known “ministers” of all time – the Reverend Fred Rogers, better known as Mr. Rogers, who wrote this in a book called “ The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things To Remember”: “A ministry doesn't have to be only through a church, or even through an ordination. And I think we all can minister to others in this world by being compassionate and caring. I hope you will feel good enough about yourselves that you will want to minister to others, and that you will find your own unique ways to do that.” 

July 15 sermon: The Example Of John The Baptist

King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

(Mark 6:14-29)

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     When we think about John the Baptist, it’s usually in some sort of connection to either the Christmas story or the baptism of Jesus. John’s birth and his early life as a prophet preparing the way for Jesus are regular features of Advent and just after Epiphany. But there’s one other story about John the Baptist - and every three years the lectionary includes this reading in the middle of summer. John the Baptist appears again and we get a depiction of his execution – an act so brutal that if it happened today it couldn’t be shown on television. I’ve often wondered what this graphic and unpleasant story that interrupts our summer doldrums means for us in today’s world, and as I tried to puzzle that out, I found myself drawn to some words of Mark Twain. “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.” There’s a lot of truth to that – in part because those who are good examples sometimes serve as a reminder to us that being a good example as one who stands for God often comes with a price. The history of the church is full of examples of people who stood for God who have paid a price – up to their very lives. In fact the ancient church leader Tertullian once wrote that the “blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” For 2000 years many Christians have been inspired by the example of Christian men and women who have sacrificed for the gospel, and although we don’t often think of John the Baptist in those terms, this passage reminds us that John the Baptist was one of them.

     The story of John the Baptist challenges us to be among those who will have the courage to speak God’s truth to those with power – and those with power are often the last who want to hear God’s truth, and so there’s always a temptation to play it safe, to stay quiet, to not offend, and to just keep the peace. And there is safety to be found in doing things that way. But are we called to simply stay safe and keep the peace? John the Baptist is a biblical example of someone who says that isn’t our calling – that our calling as the people of God is to stand up and be heard, and to risk the potential consequences. John the Baptist was a martyr in the best sense of the word. His example was his willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of standing for what he knew to be true.

     Now today, the word “martyr” gets misunderstood, because usually it gets claimed and applied by fanatics whose goal is often to kill as many people as they can even if it means dying themselves, but that’s a hijacking of an honourable word. The people who use the word “martyr” that way aren’t martyrs – basically they’re murderers. They kill others, but true martyrs (like John the Baptist) simply give themselves for their cause, willing to face whatever consequences might follow. We’re going to end our service today with the hymn “Faith Of Our Fathers” - which is a celebration of Christian martyrs throughout the centuries:

Faith of our fathers, living still, in spite of dungeon, fire and sword …

…

Faith of our sisters, brothers too, who still must bear oppression’s might,

Raising on high, in prisons dark, the cross of Christ still burning bright.

      John the Baptist died (and people who follow his example today suffer consequences) because he was willing to stand up and be counted. He didn’t kill anyone - because real martyrs don’t - but he spoke out; he spoke truth to power - because real martyrs do. They express themselves. They don’t keep their faith private. They’ll speak up when they see evil or injustice or oppression happening, and because they do that they tend to get into trouble. It’s easy to believe in Christ and never face consequences. Most of us can accomplish that without even having to think about it. If we keep quiet we won’t get hurt and nobody will bother us.  But as soon as you open your mouth about Christ and the Christian faith and start to stand for what Christ stood for – that’s when the trouble starts, because power doesn’t like the message of Christ. Power is afraid of it. Maybe public opinion disagrees with it. I know people in the United States who won’t talk about politics because they’re concerned about how their neighbours would respond. But Christians can’t live in fear. We can’t refuse to speak the gospel to power just because many people won’t like us doing it or might be offended by it. Christians sometimes have to be prepared to fly in the face of public opinion and to take unpopular stands simply because we know that what’s popular might be wrong. Most Christians do a pretty good job of talking about Christ and social justice in church because usually nobody in church gets too upset about it. But it takes guts to take the gospel outside the doors of the church and to go against public opinion and to stand against power. That’s tough. That’s risky.

     John the Baptist did it. He expressed his beliefs to Herod - and he got killed for it. John could have presumably just spoken to his followers and his friends and nobody would have noticed. But no. John had to go to Herod. And he paid the price with his life. Martin Luther King, Jr.  could have just preached about civil rights from his own pulpit in Montgomery, Alabama and laid low and his congregation would have patted him on the back and said “good job, pastor,” and nobody else would have noticed. But no. He spoke at huge rallies in support of civil rights. And he paid the price with his life. Oscar Romero was the Archbishop of San Salvador in Guatemala when a brutal dictatorship governed that small Central American country and when many people were either tortured – or just disappeared, never to be heard from again -  just because they opposed the government. Romero could have simply served the poor – fed them, clothed them, sheltered them, cleaned them - and no one in power would have noticed. But no. He preached a public sermon on March 23, 1980 in which he called on Guatemalan soldiers to obey God instead of government and refuse to violate people’s basic rights, and the next day after celebrating mass, a gunman fired shots through the door of Romero’s church. Struck in the heart, he paid the price for speaking out with his life.

     Disciples of Jesus have to be willing to speak out – openly and boldly and confidently – and to face the consequences of doing so. We have to be willing to speak the truth to power. It isn’t always – or even very often – going to cost Christians their lives, especially in our society. But it could cost us some friends. There might be a price to be paid. But disciples of Jesus have to believe in Jesus and his gospel with passion and we have to be willing to take risks – because the biggest challenge the church faces and the thing that could eventually destroy us isn’t speaking up – it’s not speaking at all; it’s becoming irrelevant to the world around us.

     This is what we learn from John the Baptist. This is what we learn from Martin Luther King, Jr. This is what we learn from Oscar Romero. This is what we learn from all of those “who still must bear oppression’s might, raising on high, in prisons dark, the cross of Christ still burning bright.” These are our examples of how to live as disciples of Jesus and of how to live with passion for the gospel. And what Mark Twain wrote is true: “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.” Indeed, there is a lot of truth to that –  because those who are good examples sometimes do remind to us that being a good example comes with a price.

July 8 sermon: A Powerful Weakness

I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows - was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

(2 Corinthians 12:2-10)

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     There’s a story told – a sort of parable actually - about an old grandfather clock that had stood for three generations in the same corner of a room, faithfully ticking off the minutes day after day. In the clock was a heavy weight that had to be pulled to the top every night to keep the clock running. One day, the clock was sold and the new owner noticed the heavy weight. “Too bad,” he thought, knowing nothing about how the clock worked, “that such an old clock has to carry such a heavy weight.” So he took the weight off the chain, and immediately the clock stopped running. “Why did you do that?” the clock asked. “I wanted to lighten your load,” the man replied. “Why?” asked the clock. “Didn’t you realize that the weight I bore was what kept me going?”

     We’re a lot like the old lock. Many people think that they want an easy way through life, with all the burdens and all the weights taken away. We assume that if that happened, our lives would be happy and blissful. We don’t realize that sometimes it’s those weights and burdens and struggles that keep us going; that push us forward and that ultimately bring our faith to perfection. Even Paul had to come to understand that, and our Scripture passage today describes what you might call his “AHA!” moment, when he realized that his struggles and hardships and weaknesses were actually tremendous opportunities to build his relationship with God. In the same way, it’s in our own times of conflict and defeat and struggle that we need to find a source of strength beyond ourselves. And, in the end, we can rejoice that there is such a source of strength available to us – and it’s found in the inexhaustible grace of God. God’s grace will sustain us, no matter what hardships and challenges life may bring. From Paul’s own writing, we discover that it was in his own weakness that he discovered the power of God that would give him strength to persevere through all hardships. “My power is made perfect in weakness,” God had revealed to Paul. Surely that’s a revelation we could all take comfort in.

     It does sound strange, though. How can any power be “made perfect in weakness”? The words puzzle us and intrigue us and confuse us because they seem so contradictory. We think of power and weakness as being mutually exclusive. One is either powerful or weak, but one can’t be both. And yet, it’s true, at least in a Christian life – power and weakness do go together. We may not understand it, but most Christians have experienced it somewhere along the way: that strength that comes from outside ourselves when we’re facing some struggle or trial that has such a hold on us that we know we don’t have the strength within ourselves to keep going. Paul talks in Philippians about a peace that passes understanding. That’s the sense of peace that we feel – and I think everyone feels it from time to time – at those times when we shouldn’t feel peace; when we should be disturbed or frightened or uneasy or doubtful – but we’re not. “The peace that passes understanding.” I believe that’s the presence of God in our midst; God’s Spirit reaching out to us and filling us and telling us that – no matter what – all is well. It’s often hard for us to acknowledge our weaknesses. Usually, we try to hide our weaknesses. We play to our strengths, so to speak. But Paul learned that if he played to his weaknesses, he’d find a strength and a peace – and a presence – that would make him more powerful than he could ever imagine.

     Paul wrote in this passage about a strange divine revelation of heaven he had received. It’s hard to know what to make of the rather strange cosmology he speaks of (the so-called “third heaven”) but maybe we don’t have to understand the details. The point is that he’s had a marvelous spiritual experience of some sort that has made him powerfully aware of God’s presence with him. What he became aware of almost immediately, though, was that this experience didn’t relieve him from his earthly sufferings. His “thorn … in the flesh” (which could have been a disease that couldn’t be cured or a sinful temptation that he couldn’t overcome – he never actually explains it) caused him great suffering – perhaps both physically and spiritually – but it also caused him to understand his need to draw ever closer to God. But it’s important for us to understand that Paul did not get relief from his suffering. We need to understand that if we’re going to understand what happened to Paul and make it relevant to today. Many people pray for many things, and when they don’t get them they say “God didn’t answer my prayer,” and they give up on God. What they fail to understand is that Christian faith is never about what we get but is rather about what we become. God may well say “NO” to a specific prayer – just as he did to Paul’s prayer for relief from his “thorn … in the flesh” - but God didn’t abandon Paul, and neither does God abandon us when we’re facing some struggle from which there seems to be no release. Instead, God worked to give Paul enough strength to deal with his struggle, and Paul ended up using his “thorn” to tap into the all-sufficient grace of God. You see, God always works – even if God’s answer to a specific prayer is “NO.” If we understand that God is still working in spite of that denial of our wishes, we can then suddenly find ourselves boasting in our own weaknesses, and, ideally, showing others God’s presence and strength through how we’ve been able to deal with them and go on.

     A denied desire is painful. As children, probably none of us liked it when our parents said “no” to us, because children tend to live in the moment with little thought of anything else. Whatever we wanted at any given moment was the most important thing in the world to us at that moment, and not to get it was a crushing thing. It was painful for Paul when God refused his request to remove the “thorn … in the flesh”(whatever it was) and we know that God’s “NO” didn’t sit well with Paul – because Paul says he asked “three times” before he could finally bring himself to accept the answer. It seems as though he begged; he pleaded with God to do this for him. But finally, while his “thorn … in the flesh” remained, Paul found something infinitely more valuable than a relief from this particular trouble: he had found that God was always with him and that God’s grace was always upon him and that God’s strength would always be available to him – and that he needed nothing else. He had discovered that he would always be able to go on, no matter what he might be facing – whether it was this current weakness or any time of weakness or trial that he might have to face in the future.

     The father of the Swedish hymn writer Lina Sandell Berg was a Lutheran pastor in Sweden. When she was 26 years old, she went with her father on a boat trip, during which he accidentally fell overboard and drowned. Later, as she reflected on how she overcame the ordeal of seeing her father swept away by the waves, she wrote the following words that, once translated, became a popular hymn in the English-speaking world as well, and translated into English it begins with these words:

Day by day, and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here;

Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment, I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.

     The “Father” she wrote about, of course, wasn’t her earthly father, but her heavenly Father, who had helped her overcome the trauma of what she experienced that day on the sea and move on to a life as a writer of gospel hymns. Even then, her trials weren’t over. She married a man who would become a member of the Swedish Parliament, but their only child died at birth. She later battled typhoid fever which she recovered from but which left her with ongoing health problems until she died in 1903 at the age of 70. But for everything she experienced, she never wavered in faith and she wrote hymns in praise of God that are still sung in Sweden to this day.

     When you face trials and challenges and burdens, many people will tell you to look within yourself for a source of strength to see you through. But the reality is that those inner resources often aren’t enough - we need a source of strength beyond ourselves. We need to learn, as Paul needed to learn, that ultimately the greatest strength is made available to us when we face our greatest needs. Remember that, again in Philippians, Paul wrote not that we can do all things, but that we can “do all things through Christ who strengthens [us].” We can overcome any hardship, persevere through any crisis, battle through any challenge and triumph over any temptation – all because of Christ, who strengthens us, because God’s power is made perfect in our weakness.

July 1 sermon: The Cross And The Maple Leaf

So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor. So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you are right in what you say and teach, and you show deference to no one, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?” They said, “The emperor’s.” He said to them, “Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said; and being amazed by his answer, they became silent.

(Luke 20:20-26)

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     In another passage of the Gospels, Jesus said to his disciples, “You cannot serve both God and money.” While he referred to money, I think the principle he was speaking of is much broader. You can only have one master; you can’t serve more than that. So while it’s true that “you cannot serve both God and money,” I think it would be equally true to say, for example, that “you cannot serve both God and [country.] That’s a principle I want to talk a bit about today.

     There’s always been a bit of a tense relationship between the state and the church, and – in the life of individual Christians – between being a Christian and being a citizen. The problem of the relationship was played out in the news just a couple of weeks ago. Confronted by the uproar over the images of children being deliberately separated from their parents on the US-Mexico border by US immigration and border control officials, the Attorney-General of the United States – Jeff Sessions – appealed to Romans 5 to try to tell people that they should stop criticizing the Trump administration for this policy, because the Bible, he said, told Christians to obey the state and its laws. I’m not going to get into an in depth discussion about Romans 5 except to say that it is one of the most tragically misused and abused passages of the entire Bible. It’s a passage that was used by Hitler, for example, to tell Christians in Nazi Germany that they should go along with the Nazi regime because the Bible demanded obedience to the state – and many Christians in Nazi Germany did, in fact, knuckle under to Nazism. In the case of Jeff Sessions, it was heartwarming to see condemnation of his use of the passage coming from a whole variety of sources, and when you have everyone from Roman Catholic bishops to liberal Protestant leaders to someone like Franklin Graham condemning both the policy and the scriptural justification Sessions used to try to quell criticism of the policy, I think it’s probably safe to say that there’s a solid consensus within the broader Christian community that the passage was being used out of context and improperly interpreted. And that’s a perfect and recent illustration of the tension involved with being both a Christian who belongs to the Kingdom of God and a citizen of an earthly nation. There is always the temptation to replace the cross with the flag, to replace God with country or leader and to replace faith with patriotism, to the point at which it’s easy to start to make country and church indistinguishable, no matter how much we might talk about the so-called separation of church and state.

     As a citizen of a country whose national anthem makes explicit reference to God and asks for God’s protection over the country, I am nevertheless uneasily aware of the fact that when country and church become too intertwined and when patriotism and faith start to co-exist as equals in many people’s lives, church and faith are generally the losers. Many Christians allow their own personal political ideologies to shape their understanding of Jesus’ teachings, rather than the other way around. We see that being played out quite openly in the United States right now, but it does happen in Canada as well. When Christians begin demanding that the state basically do the church’s job or that the state start to enforce any particular Christian group’s understanding of morality, then the church has lost. If we reach the point at which we need the state to enforce Christian values, then Christianity has started to resemble the Taliban of Afghanistan rather than reflecting the grace of God and the love of Jesus. And yet, as both disciples of Jesus and as citizens of Canada, we do need to find some way of reconciling those two calls upon our lives. That’s why I wanted to look at this passage from Luke’s Gospel today.

     The convergence of Canada Day with our day of worship offers us a perfect opportunity to reflect upon how to live with the reality of what we might all our dual citizenship: Scripture tells us that we are citizens of heaven, but most of us are also citizens of the country in which we live. We have obligations – both confirmed by Scripture – to obey the laws of the land but also to be faithful followers of Jesus, and sometimes Christians are faced with the dilemma of what to do when their government crosses over that line and asks its citizens to accept a policy that simply can’t be reconciled with Christian faith. Devotion to God and loyalty to country aren’t mutually exclusive, but they can be in conflict. Reconciling the two requires thought, and so I wanted to speak on this Canada Day about how as Christians we reconcile our loyalty to both God and to Canada. How do we live simultaneously as both citizens of heaven and citizens of our country? The passage we heard from Luke’s Gospel offers us perhaps the most practical issue any of us have to deal with, because we deal with it virtually every day: is it right to pay taxes to a government that might sometimes take positions that are inconsistent with and possibly sometimes even anathema to Christian faith?

     In Luke, the context of Jesus’ words, of course, was the Roman Empire. It was the scribes and priests who came to Jesus on that particular day with this question – and this was a group that had no love for the Empire. They saw the Romans as an occupying power and they yearned to be liberated from it, but hypocritically they were willing to use the power and authority of the Roman Empire to achieve their ends. Their question was whether the people of Judea should pay taxes. That wasn’t a simple question with an obvious answer. By paying taxes to the Empire, the people were – among other things – paying for their own occupation and for the pagan practices that the Roman Empire supported and paid for. Now the scribes and priests assumed that Jesus could answer only one of two ways: he could say “pay your taxes,” and the people would turn against him, or he could say “don’t pay your taxes” and the Romans would arrest him for inciting rebellion. Either way, they assumed, they’d be rid of him. But Jesus answered enigmatically: “... give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” So the people were confronted with a dilemma: what did they owe the Empire, and what did they owe God, and how would they balance the two? Two thousand years later, we still face that challenge: what belongs to the maple leaf, and what belongs to the cross, and how do we balance the two? Or you could ask: what do we owe the government, and what do we owe God?

     I’m going to suggest to you that Scripture tells us that we owe the government four things. First, we owe the government respect. We might find it easy to respect government leaders who are honest, just and moral people. But there are leaders who lie, who pass laws for personal gain, who engage in immoral acts, who divide rather than unite. And the Bible tells us to give all government leaders our respect. The word “respect” here doesn’t mean that we have to approve without question everything that every government leader does or that we should never criticize them, but the teachings of Jesus suggest that we should always act toward every person – including our leaders – in a way that accords them personal dignity. Second – like it or not – we owe the government taxes. Someone once said that a person who enjoys paying taxes probably also enjoys hitting themself over the head with a hammer. But enjoyable or not, we are to pay our taxes – even if we don’t like what the government does with our taxes. In a book called “God And Caesar,” John Eidsmore wrote that

the Roman government of Paul’s day deified Nero [and sponsored his worship.] Rome certainly did not use its tax money as Christians would desire. The tax collectors of Jesus’ time … did not employ fair methods of taxation. Taxes were often excessive and arbitrarily imposed. Yet Jesus and Paul both spoke very clearly on the subject: the Christian ought to pay … taxes.

Withholding taxes (even when we don’t like how the taxes are being spent) or evading taxes by being paid “under the table” simply isn’t consistent with the teaching of Scripture. Third, we owe the government our involvement. Christians have a unique and important perspective to bring to the important issues of the day, and let’s let go of the nonsense that says that faith should be left behind in the church and has no place in political discussion. Anyone who is a Christian must be guided by their faith in Jesus as they make political decisions and discuss political questions. The church should avoid being partisan, but the church must be political if the church is going to be about the business of Jesus who so often confronted social issues that many sometimes demand that the church leave alone. Guided by faith we need to speak out – not to create a “Christian nation” but to ensure that the unique perspective of faith and the word of God is heard in national and international debates. And fourth, we owe the government our prayers. Sometimes in the midst of criticizing our leaders we forget that and if our candidate loses we find it hard to pray for the winner. But in 1 Timothy we see very clearly that “supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings [are to] be made for … kings and all who hold high positions.” Whether or not we think that our leaders do a good job, whether or not we think they’re honest, whether or not we think they’re moral, whether or not we agree with their policies – regardless of any of that, we owe our prayers to our leaders.

     If that’s what we owe our governments and our leaders, what do we owe to God? In some respects we can answer this very simply: we’re required to love God with all our hearts, and this love for God should overflow and be expressed by love for all around us. But that’s just a bit too simplistic. We owe, I think, for more than simply love to God. We owe our primary loyalty and devotion to God. Love for God and love for country may not be mutually exclusive, but they also aren’t equal, and when they are in conflict and when Christian people, in good conscience come to the conclusion that they are in conflict – when the state, for example, does something or asks its citizens to do something that we feel conflicts with our ultimate loyalty to God – then Christians must, I would argue, stand against the state and even break the law if necessary to do so. The concept of non-violent protest and non-violent civil disobedience is central to the understanding that we are citizens of God’s Kingdom first, and only after that are we citizens of an earthly kingdom. I’ve seen in just the last week or so pictures of Christian priests, Christian ministers and Jewish rabbis in the United States being handcuffed, arrested and taken away because their faith compelled them to engage in civil disobedience against a policy that forcibly separated children from their parents – a policy that forced them to stand up and be counted; to say “NO!” and to face the consequences for doing so. And I say: God bless them!

     The British Christian writer Jo Swinney wrote that “we can be patriotic Christians but our patriotism may look quite different to secular patriotism. … We can be Christian patriots, but we are Christians first.” Ultimately, each of us – responsible to God and guided by our own God-given conscience – must from time to time decide on a variety of issues when and whether the time has come to take a stand for God against either prevailing public opinion or even against the government.

     Jesus’ reply to the question “Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” confounded his opponents for the simple reason that it provoked no confrontation. It left no room for an accusation of disloyalty to Rome, but it also stressed the need for true loyalty to God. Due and proper obedience had to be given to each; neither loyalty could be neglected. Too many Christians today spend far too much time worrying about the loss of Christian influence on government, apparently forgetting that Jesus himself said that “my Kingdom is not of this world.” In the light of those words of Jesus, perhaps we shouldn’t worry too much about trying to create Christian kingdoms in the world. Our call is to live as Christian people, accountable directly to God for our own actions. Christian faith and national patriotism are not mutually exclusive concepts, but Christian faith takes priority over national patriotism, and Christian people have not just a right but an obligation to speak out, to protest and in some circumstances even to disobey when the state acts outside the arena God has given it to act in, or acts contrary to the will of God inside that arena. The first and over-riding loyalty for any Christian must be to God over country. I believe that as citizens of Canada we have a wonderful country that should be celebrated. I believe we should cherish the freedoms that we have as Canadians – but I cannot forget that true freedom comes from my relationship with Jesus, and first and foremost, I believe in God. After all, the maple leaf may represent our country, but it’s the cross that gives us life!