First Sunday in Advent

FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT, DECEMBER 2: SPENDING LESS                                                                         You cannot serve God and money.

For most Americans, the Christmas Season—Advent in the Church Calendar—entails a period of excess shopping, spending, and partying. Jesus says something in that we should consider before jumping into this consumerism mayhem: “You cannot serve God and money.” When put into context, this verse speaks to the real problem of the excesses of the Christmas Season:

 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,  but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. . . .  No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:19-21,  24)

If you choose to go against the cultural flow and spend less this Christmas, it does not mean that you love your family and friends less. Perhaps by giving them a personal, creative gift or something from the Alternative Giving market, they may experience a deeper sense of your love and God’s love.

Prayer for the Day: Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Advent 2012

I have written a new devotional for Lent for the Church of St. John the Divine Houston that starts today and ends with Christmas.

INTRODUCTION TO ADVENT 2012

When I was a child, I loved the Advent season, anticipating Christmas Day, the gifts I would receive, and the familiar carols we would sing in church. The family gatherings and parties never failed to entertain me and make me joyful. One of my favorite traditions was watching A Charlie Brown Christmas. Year after year I was moved when Charlie Brown bought the pathetic Christmas tree that no one wanted, brought it to the Christmas pageant, was declared a failure by his fellow cast members, and then in exasperation asked, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” At that point Linus took center stage. Reading from the King James Version of Luke’s Gospel, he told us what Christmas was all about. To this day, I do not like any other version of the Christmas story.

When I was a young architect, I used to walk from my office through a department store to the food court in the adjacent mall for lunch. One September I noticed that the Christmas display went up the week after Labor Day. This was entirely too early. It made Christmas entirely too commercial. And it seems to me that nothing has really changed. Christmas is as commercial as it ever has been, and I want to ask, like Charlie Brown, “Does anyone know what Christmas is all about?”

There is a movement afoot, known as The Advent Conspiracy, to help people see what Christmas really is about and that Christmas really can change the world. The authors of The Advent Conspiracy put it this way:

There is a sense of prophetic mystery surrounding Christ’s birth. The story reveals something divine to us; it drives our quest to look closely at our own stories. Who are we? Why are we? How do we? Where, in the midst of our questions, is this Immanuel, this God-with-us?

Sadly, for all our questioning, the mystery of the Incarnation escapes us. Jesus comes, in his first Advent, into the midst of our great sin and suffering. This was God’s design. But apart from the angels nudging a few scared shepherds and a cryptic star decoded by a handful of distant astrologists, almost everyone else missed it.

Missing out should feel familiar; most of us habitually miss it every year at Christmas. Our story is consumption and consumerism, and we’re obsessed with the climax. We worship less. We spend more. We give less. We struggle more.

Less, more. More, less. Time and nerves stretch thin, and we reduce family and friends to a card or a present that costs the “right” amount to prove our level of love. Our quest to celebrate mystery exhausts us. Another Christmas passes by like a blizzard, and we are left to shovel through the trash of our failure.

Missing the prophetic mystery of Jesus’ birth means missing God-with-us, God beside us—God becoming one of us. Missing out on Jesus changes everything.

I write this devotional to help us refocus on the meaning of Christmas and the purpose of giving. May it challenge you in your thinking about Christmas as we consider spending less, giving more, loving all, and worshiping fully. This Advent, prepare for a Christmas season in which we exchange consumption for compassion, consumerism for Christ-centered celebration, cultural conformity to Christian-counterculture. Would it not be nice if we, like Linus, could tell the world what Christmas really is all about?

Thoughts on Marriage

Marriage is all about Jesus. It cannot be understood apart from him. God created marriage as a living metaphor to explain salvation to us. (Read Ephesians 5 and you will see.) Marriage is where we learn to die to self. Marriage is where we learn we are not the center of the world. Marriage is where we learn to serve someone else.Marriage is where we learn to submit. Marriage is where we learn sacrificial love. Marriage is where we learn to forgive. Marriage is where we learn how imperfect we are and how much we need to die to self. Marriage is where we learn to be of Christ and not of the world. Marriage is where we see what Jesus has done for us and that he is coming back for his Bride. Jesus died that we might be made alive. In marriage we learn to die so that the marriage may thrive.

Regarding conflict in marriage: should we avoid or embrace it? Should we withdraw from conflict or engage with it? Jesus never ran away from conflict but embraced it. He embraced conflict with Satan. He embraced it with the Sadducees, Pharisees, and scribes. He embraced conflict with all kinds of sinners either to resolve the conflict through a new born faith in him or to bring to a head a person's rejection of him. True resolution of conflict isn’t compromise. Jesus never compromised. It is about collaboration—dying to self so that something new will be born.

Jesus dealt with conflict and so should we in marriage, at work, in church--in all relationships in life where we can. Some people will reject conflict resolution because they will not collaborate. Christians in marriage and in all relationships are called to collaborate with one another to resolve conflict where they can. We are ambassadors for Christ. We are in the reconciliation business by the very nature of being in Christ.

Rescue & Restoration in the Old & New Testaments

Genesis 45:1-15 and Matthew 15:10-20

One of the worst parts of my job is to see the effects of sin in the lives of people. We pastors get to hear and see the harm people do to each other through deceit and infidelity. Or as Jesus describes it: for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These sins cause havoc, injury, distress, and shame. But we also, over time, get to witness how God heals, rescues, redeems, and restores his people. We witness reconciliation, transformation, and redemption. And that is sweet. The story of Joseph and his brothers is such a story of redemption, transformation, and sweet reconciliation.

Joseph is the star of the fourth generation of God’s family of the promise. He is the great-grandson of Abraham, the grandson of Isaac, and favored son of Jacob. Jacob, as you may recall, had marriage problems—he had four wives, three wives too many. Joseph was his first son from his favorite wife, Rachael. In this multiple-mother family, Joseph was raised in a confused and hostile home of competitive half-brothers who resented their father’s favor toward him. So, they cooked up a scheme to murder their cocky sixteen-year-old brother, but changed their minds when they realized they could sell him into slavery and make some money on the side.
Joseph reluctantly ends up in Egypt, a pagan country south of his family homeland back in Canaan, the area God promised to his great-grandfather Abraham. In Egypt, Joseph serves an influential man named Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh. Potiphar realizes that the Lord is with Joseph and makes him the master of his household affairs. Potiphar’s wife also realizes something special about Joseph and tries to seduce him when he’s about 19 or 20. He turns her down because he loves God and does not want to sin against God. (BTW, sex outside of marriage is a sin against God. As Joseph understood, God created sex for marriage, and each time anyone has sex outside of marriage, that person is trying to recreate a world where human sexuality is different from how God created it to be. That is why it is a sin again God that needs to be repented.)

Insulted by Joseph’s rejection of her, Potiphar’s wife retaliates with a trumped up rape charge. He is thrown into prison. Joseph spends all of his twenties and his early thirties in prison—a horrible injustice—yet it is a time and a place the Lord will redeem.

Eventually Joseph gets out of prison because Pharaoh has a dream from God that no one can interpret except for Joseph. The dream was about seven fat cows that were eaten by seven gaunt cows. Joseph says this means there will be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, which is exactly what happened. Impressed with his dream interpreter, Pharaoh promotes Joseph to be his number one, making him the second most powerful man in his powerful nation. As he had been favored by Jacob, now Joseph is favored by Pharaoh.

Now in his late 30s, Joseph marries an Egyptian and has two sons. He names them Manasseh, which means God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house and Ephraim, which means God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. He gives them Hebrew names because he will raise them to worship the true God and not become pagan Egyptians.
Joseph has been away from his father and brothers for about 25 years or so. He does not know if they are dead or alive. During the years of the famine, Jacob, who is very much alive, sends ten of his remaining sons to Egypt to buy grain. Benjamin, Joseph’s brother of the same mother, stays at home. The ten brothers come face to face with Joseph, the brother they sold into slavery 25 some years ago. They do not recognize him because he looks like and speaks like an Egyptian. Joseph uses the opportunity to test his brothers. And here’s the point for us. Christians should be quick to forgive but slow to trust. Jesus entrusted himself to no man because he knew the heart of every human and how we are inclined to evil and to our own self-interests. We Christians are to forgive so that bitterness does not take root. But we should take our time reestablishing trust with people who have deliberately sinned against us.
Let’s say one spouse cheats on the other. We are to forgive them immediately when they repent. But when they say, “I’ve repented of my sin, you can trust me now,” the wise Christians says, “I forgive you. Now show me why I should trust you.” This is exactly what Joseph is doing. He puts his brothers through two years of tests to help determine what’s in their hearts.

Too many people rush into trusting people they should not. Too many people rush into marriage. Too many churches put people in leadership positions without testing them. Paul says we are to test leaders in the church. And we should test people in business as well. My father hired an escaped convict because he failed to call his references. I test people who come to me looking for assistance because I have been burned. Where our money or reputation or even God’s reputation is at stake, we need to test. I was tested when I came to SJD 9 ½ years ago.
In the midst of this testing, Joseph, I believe, wants to look into his brother Judah’s heart. If you know your Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat story well, then you know that it was Judah who came up with the idea to sell Joseph into slavery. It was his idea to cover the dream coat with goat’s blood. He brought that coat to his dad, to Jacob, and described him saying, “Animals ate him alive. Joseph is dead.”

Perhaps Judah had stood next to his father at the funeral saying, “Dad, I’m so sorry,” and then kept up the lie for 25 years. Perhaps he told his younger brothers, “Don’t say a word to dad. It will be too hard for him to take. Listen to me, I’m older and wiser.”
Judah got so messed up in his lies and his deceit, that he left his father’s house and married godless women and fathered godless children and in a godless act slept with his deceased son’s wife, Tamar, thinking she was a prostitute. And he fathered a son with her. Sounds like a twisted Jerry Springer episode where one horrific sin leads to more. Do you see why Joseph needs to do some testing? He is part of one messed up family.

In Genesis chapter 44, right before our reading, Joseph presses his brothers with the last test by placing his silver chalice in Benjamin’s bag of grain. Upon discovering it, he holds him prisoner. The godless Judah stands up for the first time in his life and says to Joseph: “Please take me as your prisoner and let the boy Benjamin go back with his brothers. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the misery that would come upon my father.”
We have just witnessed transformation in the life of Judah. And it’s about time. The line that leads from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob and down to Jesus passes through Judah, not Joseph as you might expect. (Remember Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.) All we’ve seen up until this point is a complete looser, evil scheming, self-centered jerk of a man. The moral of this story: This is what God does. He changes people. He changes lives for the sake of his Son, Jesus.

Judah wanted to feel good his whole life but he didn’t want to be good. Judah wanted the world to change around him but he didn’t want to change himself. Sound familiar? Is this not the world we live in today? Too many people learn to be comfortable living in their sins. Too many people get comfortable sinning against others. Too many people learn to love and accept themselves as fallen, sinful people. They succumb to these contemporary lies: You need to be comfortable in your own skin. You need to love yourself for who you are. You need to think positively. You need to find yourself. You need to be who you were created to be. You need to live your own life.

What we need is to be changed by God. And that is exactly what happens to Judah. Seeing this happen to people in ministry, seeing these Judah-esque moments are the mountain-top experiences of pastoral ministry. Frankly, the best Christians are these kinds of people who are mightily transformed by the power of God through the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul is the first who comes to mind in a list of godly transformation that is continuing today. These people were scoundrels, now they are saints. They worked for Satan, now they work for Jesus.

So, Judah steps forward as a substitute for Benjamin. He will bear the punishment for his father Jacob’s beloved son. Do you see how Judah is a forefather to Jesus? Jesus, who stepped forward as a substitute for you and for me? Jesus who volunteered to take the punishment for us? Judah acts like Jesus. Who would have ever thought? It is possible to become Christlike. But now, how will Joseph respond? Is the testing over? 

Joseph couldn't hold himself in any longer, keeping up a front before all his attendants. He cried out, "Everyone leave!" So there was no one with Joseph when he identified himself to his brothers. But his sobbing was so violent that the Egyptians couldn't help but hear him. Joseph spoke to his brothers: "I am Joseph. Is my father really still alive?"

But his brothers couldn't say a word. They were speechless—they couldn't believe what they were hearing and seeing.

"Come closer to me," Joseph said to his brothers. "I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt. But don't feel badly, don't blame yourselves for selling me. God was behind it. God sent me here ahead of you to save lives. There has been a famine in the land now for two years; the famine will continue for five more years. God sent me on ahead to pave the way and make sure there was a remnant in the land, to save your lives in an amazing act of deliverance. So you see, it wasn't you who sent me here but God. He set me in place as a father to Pharaoh. He put me in charge of his personal affairs, and made me ruler of all Egypt.

"Hurry back to my father. Tell him, 'Your son Joseph says: I'm master of all of Egypt. Come as fast as you can and join me here. I'll give you a place to live where you'll be close to me—you, your children, your grandchildren, your flocks, your herds, and anything else you can think of. I'll make sure all your needs are taken care of, you and everyone connected with you—you won't want for a thing.'

"Look at me. You can see for yourselves, and my brother Benjamin can see for himself, that it's me, my own mouth, telling you all this.” Joseph threw himself on his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. He then kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Only then were his brothers able to talk with him.

Are you not moved by this passage, are you not close to tears, is your heart not stirred? You have just heard the gospel in the Old Testament. You have just heard grace. You have heard of undeserved redemption and reconciliation. You and I are the sinful brothers. We are the ones who have offended against the favored Son of the Father. It was our sins that sent Jesus to the cross like the sins of the brothers who sent Joseph into Egypt. It is our pride and self-centeredness that tries to cover up our sins and hide them from the Father as Joseph’s brothers did for years. It is God, through his Spirit who changes our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh so that we admit we are sinners, that we admit we have a heart condition from which proceeds all kinds of evil.
Then we repent, asking God to forgive us, accepting not only what Jesus did for us on the cross but recognizing that nothing but the cross can help us, seeing that on the cross Jesus substituted himself for us, paying the penalty that we could not pay, dying the death that we deserved.

Joseph’s words are Jesus’ words prefigured in the Old Testament. Listen to them again, putting yourself in the place of his sinful brothers and hearing Jesus speaking to you: Don't feel bad for selling me. God was behind it. God sent me to save lives. There has been a famine of death and destruction in the land for years. God sent me to pave the way and make sure to save your lives in an amazing act of deliverance. So you see, it wasn't you who sent me to [the cross] but God.

The God of the OT is the same God of the NT. He is a God whose plan has been, is now, and every shall be to rescue his people, his beloved, and reconcile them to himself. Praise be to God our Father and our rescuer, Jesus Christ. If you have yet to be reconciled to God, I pray that you are today and that you have heard the gospel: that Jesus Christ came into the world to rescue sinners—sinners like you and me.

Christophanies

Genesis 32:22-31

Have you ever wanted to learn a new word from a sermon? I have a new word for you: Christophanies! Christophanies are appearances of Jesus in the Old Testament. You have already heard one example in Genesis, where Jacob is wrestling with a man I believe to be Jesus. Before I explain this, I want to talk about why I preach.

The primary role of clergy is to point people to Jesus. My secondary role is to teach and preach the Bible as the Word of and witness to God, to show you through God’s Word who God is. To show you who God is, is to point you to Jesus.

I bet most of you think the Old Testament doesn’t have that much to do with Jesus. I have heard people say that the God of the Old Testament (OT) is different than the God of the New Testament. Well here’s the truth: He is the same God.

Some Christians think the OT is not about Jesus and therefore they ignore it. However, the Old Testament is approximately ¾ of our Christian Bible. There are 39 books in the OT and 27 in the New Testament (NT). There are 1,189 chapters in the OT and 260 in the NT. There are 31,173 verses in the OT and 7,959 in the NT. As you can see, the OT far outsizes the NT.

Perhaps because of its size and the preaching preference of most clergy for the NT, many do not know what the OT is about. Is it about how we should live? Is it a history book? Is it a compilation of biographies of people like Adam, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Ruth, David, Solomon, and Nehemiah? Is it a book that contrasts positive and negative moral examples? What exactly is the central message of the OT?

From beginning to end, along with the NT, the OT is a book about Jesus. Don’t believe me? Then listen to what Jesus says about the OT. Speaking to the Pharisees in John’s Gospel (5:39-40, Jesus says: You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. In Luke, Jesus says that everything written in the prophetic writings of the OT is going to be accomplished in him. Jesus believed the OT Scriptures were written about him. Imagine that. Before you are born there already exists a biography about you. To which you say, “That is ridiculous.” Well of course it is ridiculous, but not if you are God.

Most of us are familiar with prophecies about the birth of Jesus:

• ·       Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 
• ·       For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
• ·      But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

There are also prophecies of Jesus’ death. Psalm 16:10, written 1000 years before Jesus’ birth says, “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your holy one see corruption.” The prophecy is that Jesus, the holy one, will die but he will not remain dead and abandoned to Sheol. And if you read Psalm 22, that Jesus quoted on the cross, saying “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?,” you will see it predicts in detail the crucifixion, down to this specific line: “A company of evildoers has surrounded me; they have pierced my hands and my feet.”

This amazing prophecy foretells the nails that were driven through the most sensitive nerve centers of Jesus’ body: his hands and his feet, causing him to die in unbearable pain. When Psalm 22 was written, crucifixion, the satanic Roman form of torture unto death, did not exist in the Hebrew culture, yet here is a remarkably exact OT prophecy.

But what about Christophanies, this fancy word given to the appearances of Jesus in the OT before he is born of the virgin Mary? Jesus did not begin his existence with life on earth. He existed eternally with God, before he entered into human history. As John writes in his gospel (1:1-3): In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. Jesus entered into human history as a baby, but he existed and ministered as the Son of God before his birth.

What was his ministry? He created all things. Nothing was made that was not made by him. Did Jesus believe this? Listen to this conversation Jesus had with some argumentative Pharisees. They asked Jesus, Are you [really] greater than our father Abraham, who died? . . . Who do you make yourself out to be?" Jesus answered . . . Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."

Clearly Jesus understood himself to be the preexistent Word of God. By referring to himself as “I am,” Jesus links himself to the conversation Moses had with God—well actually with Jesus—at the burning bush: Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" . . . This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. God’s name forever is I AM, and Jesus uses this name for himself.

Jesus also makes the claim that Abraham saw him: Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. What is Jesus talking about? He is referring to an incident from Genesis 18: And the LORD appeared to [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. [Abraham] lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth . . . They said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent." The LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son."    . . . Then the men set out from there, and . . . Abraham went with them to set them on their way. Is this not curious how we read the Lord appeared and immediately Abraham sees three men—representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? So, Abraham saw Jesus.

There is another Christophanic reference in John 12:14. Explaining a prophecy he quotes, John writes: Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. What John says is that Isaiah saw Jesus and spoke of his glory, when Isaiah wrote: I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim . . . And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" . . . And I said: "Woe is me! . . . for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

Before Jesus was born, he was reigning in heaven as God and calling Isaiah into ministry. This vision of Jesus is almost identical to the vision in Revelation where Jesus is seated on the heavenly throne, except in the latter vision Jesus looks like a “lamb who was slain.” Amazing, the ruling, reigning God of the universe bears the marks of his earthly crucifixion and death in his heavenly resurrection body.

I have shared three Christophanies so far: Jesus’ appearing to Moses, Abraham, and Isaiah. He also appears in the Book of Daniel when he joined Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace that King Nebuchadnezzar tried to kill them in because they would not worship him. Upon seeing an additional person in the fiery furnace, Nebuchadnezzar says: "But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods." Well of course he looks like a son of the gods because he was seeing the Son of God.

Which brings me to the Christophanie in our Genesis reading. There is a man wrestling with Jacob, in the immortal words of Lionel Ritchie, “All night long.” At the end of the match, he says to Jacob, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Throughout his life Jacob has striven against his father Isaac, his brother Esau, and his uncle Laban. Those are all men, but what about God? The answer is that he has just wrestled all night with Jesus. Jacob explains, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”  Jacob saw Jesus, who renames him “Israel.” Jesus, whose mission is to save the lost sheep of Israel and to create a new Israel though his death and resurrection, names Jacob Israel, giving him the name of his future bride, the people for whom he will die.

As your pastor, I want you to read the Bible, including the OT, and get to Jesus. I want you to see that the people and events of the OT point to what Jesus will ultimately fulfill.

Paraphrasing Mark Driscoll: Unlike the first Adam, Jesus is the last Adam, who passed his test in the garden and imputed his righteousness to us to overcome the sin imputed to us through the first Adam. Jesus is the true and better Able who, although innocent, was slain and whose blood cries out for our acquittal. When Abraham left his father at home, he was doing the same thing that Jesus would do when he left heaven. When Isaac carried his own wood and laid down his life to be sacrificed at the hand of his father, Abraham, he was showing us what Jesus would later do. Jesus is the greater Jacob, who wrestled with God the Father in Gethsemane and, though wounded and limping, walked away from his grave blessed. Jesus is the greater Joseph, who serves at the right hand of God the King and extends forgiveness and provision to those who have betrayed him and uses his power to save us in loving reconciliation. Jesus is the greater Moses who stands as a mediator between God and us, bringing us the new covenant. Jesus is a king greater than David, who has slain our giants of Satan, sin, and death. Jesus is greater than Jonah in that he spent three days in the grave and not just a fish to save a multitude. When Boaz redeemed Ruth and brought her and her despised people into community with God’s people, he was showing what Jesus would do to redeem his bride, the church, from all the nations of the earth. When Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem, he was doing something similar to Jesus, who is building for us a new Jerusalem as our eternal home. When Hosea married an unfaithful, whoring wife that he continued to pursue and love, he was showing us the heart of Jesus, who does the same thing for his unfaithful bride, the church. Do you get it? Throughout the Old Testament, significant figures prefigure and do important things that ultimately lead us to Jesus, who is greater and does them better.

Thank you for letting me preach today and listening for so long. My joy is to open up the Bible and talk about Jesus, so you will know him and love him and trust him and serve him and, like Jacob, see him face to face.

The Parable of the Wheat and Weeds

Preached at St. John the Divine, Houston, TX, on July 17, 2011

Romans 8:12-25 and Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43

The church is not the Kingdom of God. The job of the church is to proclaim the kingdom. We are not the kingdom. The church is not the kingdom because of all its problems. The church, in its history has tried, through force and intimidation and political moves, to be the kingdom, but it is not. One day the true church will be taken fully into the kingdom at the marriage supper of the Lamb. But the church is not the point of this parable.

In this parable, the wheat and the weeds grow side by side. As people come into the kingdom, the enemy deceives others. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world coexist side by side. I’m reminded of that bumper sticker about coexisting. Coexisting is not being in the kingdom; it is about being in the world where the enemy deceives people that all paths lead to God. But Jesus himself ushered in the kingdom of God in his message and ministry. The kingdom was present in him and will be fully present in him when he returns for his bride, the church.

The kingdom is established but not fully fulfilled. This echoes our life of salvation. We are saved, yet we still sin. But as Paul tells us in Romans, God is at work within us. His Spirit is purifying us, disciplining us, convicting us of our sins, and gradually conforming us to the image of Christ. And we know this is happening because we call God, “Abba, Father.” “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children, we are wheat and not weeds. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

When the kingdom is finally consummated, in that great day, we won’t sin anymore nor will we be hurt by sin. Yet for now, Jesus says, do not pull out the weeds, leave them. Why? Because in the reality of the kingdom, the dead come back to life. Weeds become wheat. We cannot judge who they will become. As author Jared Wilson writes, “When we see with kingdom eyes, we don’t write anyone off or leave anyone for dead. Instead, we do the radical, revolutionary, counter-cultural thing—bear with the unbearable and minister with grace to those who don’t have what we have. We coexist with the weeds—peacefully, humbly, lovingly—in the hopes that more and more stalks will come into the light and be transformed into wheat.”

Jesus the King promised that the kingdom would spread when he described the kingdom like yeast in bread dough. He promised the kingdom would grow when he described the kingdom of God to be like a mustard seed. This is what the kingdom does. It sets free those captive to sin. It opens the eyes of the spiritually blind to see the glorious grace of the cross, the wrath of God poured out on his own Son rather than on us undeserving sinners.

Living in the tension of the unfulfilled kingdom teaches us that we who are wheat are not to look upon those who are weeds with disdain, with judgment, or with despair. King Jesus is at work, bringing satisfaction and fulfillment to the grieving and victimized and marginalized as he brings them into his kingdom where we all find hope and peace and love. This invasion of the kingdom continues every day as we in the kingdom crucify our flesh and humble ourselves before a world that revels in the flesh and is totally opposed to humility.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” The kingdom is in you. It is not something we institutionalize or politicize or militarize. The kingdom of God is Jesus the King reigning in hearts and minds.

Again, as Jared Wilson says, “The actions of kingdom people testify to the kingdom, but those actions won’t work to further the kingdom—they won’t be a true testimony that glorifies God and sets people free—if they don’t flow from hearts ruled by the King. Right behavior must come from right character. Without right character, right behavior is hypocrisy.”

In spite of our hypocrisy—and let’s admit we all have problems with hypocrisy—we also have a gospel promise: Jesus has accomplished what he set out to do. He achieved victory for us. “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

Why do we wait patiently? Because of the cross. The message of the cross, along with the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God, testifies that he is for us. King Jesus, like out-going presidents of the United States, is handing out pardons. These pardons rankle people who oppose the president and/or the people he pardons. But this is a comparable picture of what Jesus has done for us. He sets people free who don’t deserve it, and in the process he scandalizes people who don’t get it.

Yet we know that the kingdom of God is manifested in Jesus our Savior, and that it maintains its presence in the hearts and minds of his followers, and we know that the job of his church is to keep proclaiming this message of the crucified Lord until the return of the King.

I care about you because I care about the King. I love you because Jesus has put that love in my heart, transforming me from a weed to a growing stalk of wheat. There is a day of judgment coming, when the angels will come to gather the weeds and burn them. This is not a story. This is true prophecy uttered from the mouth of Jesus. If you have never heard of the pardon offered to you by Jesus, I pray that the Spirit moves your heart today. I pray that he opens your eyes to see that Jesus is the King who brings you into the only kingdom that will last into eternity: the Kingdom of God. And I pray that the Spirit testifies with your spirit today that you are a child of God and a co-heir of his Son, Jesus Christ, the only true King. Amen.

Antidote for Me: The Kingdom of God

Preached at St. John the Divine, Houston, TX, on July 24, 2011

Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52; Trust in the Age of Arrogance by the Rt. Rev. FitzSimons Allison

There is only one antidote for me, and that is the Kingdom of Heaven, or as the other gospel writers call it, the Kingdom of God. I exist in my own self-centered kingdom until I am born again through the Holy Spirit to become a child of God, focused on God, who lives in the Kingdom of God.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple wrote:

When we open our eyes as babies we see the world stretching out around us; we are in the middle of it . . . I am the center of the world I see. Where the horizon is, depends on where I stand  . . . Some things hurt us; we hope they will not happen again; we call them bad. Some things please us; we hope they will happen again; we call them good. Our standard of value is the way the things affect ourselves. So each of us takes his place in the center of his own world. But I am not the center of the world, or the standard of reference as between good and bad; I am not, and God is.

The number one human problem is self-centeredness.

Our self-centeredness, according to retired Episcopal Bishop FitzSimons Allison in his most recent book, Trust in the Age of Arrogance, “creates the need and requirements for laws, locks, police, prisons, and time-out places for children. This self-as-center is the cause of divorce, litigation, corruption, murder, war, genocide, and terrorism. Human self-centeredness ultimately puts us in an adversarial posture not only with others but with God himself. (pp. xiii-xiv)

What is our hope? How can we get beyond our constant need and struggle to be the center of all things? First, one has to admit we are afflicted with this problematic condition. We have to admit that our ingenuity for taking unfair advantage of others, is never tamed for long by rules or rulers. As long as we see ourselves as the standard reference for good and bad, we will always be in conflict with someone else’s standard of reference. Take the handicap parking space at my gym, for example, that is frequently used by the non-handicapped because it is the best parking space! It makes me sick. But then I’ve parked in handicap spaces as well! But these are minor examples of self-centeredness. Tiger Woods, Elizabeth Taylor, and Bernie Madoff are worse. Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin, Mohamar Kaddafi, and Sadam Hussein are even worse.

Is it really helpful, however, for us to compare ourselves to others when it comes to self-centeredness? Can each of us at least admit that we have a problem with self-centeredness—even if we haven’t murdered anyone?

So, first, we have to admit we have a problem, a problem that required the self-sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to atone for our sins.

Second, it appears that the most workable solution to this problem is the need to commit oneself to something or someone greater than oneself—to get your eyes off of you and focused on something greater. Perhaps you could commit to the Democratic or Republican parties, to Reaganism or Clintonianism. Perhaps you could commit yourself to following Oprah or Gandhi or the Dali Lama. Perhaps you could commit yourself to capitalism or socialism or communism or consumerism! Perhaps we could commit to being green or nice or generous or to just plain “drive friendly,” like the unnoticed sign on 290 I saw on Friday at rush hour. [Hey everybody, look at this sign and be nice to me!]

Two of the great modern hopes of the 20^th-Century to end human self-centeredness, Nazism and Communism, proved to be utterly flawed. Another great hope, Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism, the pursuit of one’s own rational self-interest and one’s own happiness as the highest purpose of life, has proved to be a philosophy that justifies exploiting the weak and disadvantaged, while pushing for one’s own agenda and personal advancement—a very “uncross-centered” way to live.

You see, we are not only born self-centered, but everything we try to do and follow, save one, leads us into rivalry with others and conflict with God, who is the only true center, the only one who can deal with this in-born disease, namely original or birth-sin. This sin is not in the following of Adam as by example, but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every person, that naturally comes into being in the offspring of Adam. All of us are self-centered and inclined to evil, even after we are baptized. Although, as Paul says, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus . . . [because] nothing is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

FitzSimons Allison tells this story to make the point about our problem with sin. In the secular world stealing someone’s pen is merely a crime against its owner but it is a much deeper offense. In God’s world the pen belongs to Joe and if Bill steals it he is attempting to create a world in which it belongs to Bill. It is an offense against the real center: God. If Bill kills Joe it is not simply a crime against Joe. Bill is trying to create a world in which Joe does not exist. The crime, the offense, the sin is an antagonism against God, the true and final reality. (p. xv)

As David says in Psalm 51, “Against you [O Lord], you only, have I sinned.” Preacher Arthur McGill concurs: “I came to understand that sin is not a matter of morality or conduct, but a state or orientation of a man’s entire consciousness which does not make God its center.”

Once we see this truth, that when we sin it is a sin against God, a rebellion against the Creator, then we come to see that the only true center is God himself, and that our need is to be in this center, to be in the kingdom of God. “ME” must be “crossed-out”!

Therefore, Jesus preached about the kingdom of God: “Repent and believe in the gospel for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Then he explained how the kingdom takes hold of a person’s heart, mind, and life in the Parable of the Sower. He explained why his kingdom is now but not yet, how it begins but is not yet fully blown in the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds. And today we hear: "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." And Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened."

The main point of these two parables, along with the parable of the wheat and the weeds, lies simply in the huge extent of this kingdom which began from such humble, unimpressive beginnings with Jesus and his handful of disciples. From a Galilean carpenter rabbi crucified on a Roman cross to a world-wide faith centered in the person and work and kingship of Jesus.


All three parables of growth focus on the paradox of insignificant or hidden beginnings and the promise of a triumphant climax. For the disciples, and I believe for us today, there is the natural impatience to see God’s kingdom in all its glory, and the total eradication of all that opposes it in our lives and in the world. Let’s admit we’d rather have the glory than to suffer in this life by having to pick up our crosses daily. To Jesus’ disciples and to us who expect God to act dramatically and without delay, Jesus points out that the full growth is assured from the moment the seed is sown and the leaven kneaded in. And like the kingdom, our salvation is assured in the commanding verses of Romans 8: No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.


There is a reorientation when we come into the kingdom of God. It is a reorientation away from self and toward God. Yet, we are always tempted to revert to me as center. I was talking about our worship music in the Contemporary Service to someone who said: “I love the worship music I listen to on my iPod and wish it were the music we worshipped to on Sundays.” I’m not trying to be critical of this person because I could just as easily have said the same thing. But the thought dawned on me: What if we each came to worship with our own iPods and could listen, on our own earphones, to our own music, what we like best. We could save money by eliminating the band, and if people were late to worship, they could be listening to their worship music as they drove and they wouldn’t really miss out on worship!


Okay, so sarcasm isn’t the greatest tool of communication, but I think you get my point. It is so easy for Christians to be me-centered. We are self-centered by nature and live in perhaps the most self-centered culture ever where best-selling Apple products all seem to have the word “I” in them. Is this connection between Apple and I a coincidence? That’s just a bonus rhetorical question in this morning’s sermon for you to think on!


Did you know that in the Top 10 Christian Songs on Billboard this week, that only 4 out of 10 use the name Jesus for a total of 8 times in 40 minutes of music? And that 9 out of 10 of these songs refer to either “me” or “I” 142 times? If we were to sing those songs in worship, we would mention ourselves 14 times more than the name of Jesus. Now I am not counting the number of times Jesus is referred to as “you” or “he,” but I think you get the point. The name above all names is Jesus, but if you listen to Top 10 Christian songs, you would think that everything Jesus did was about me.


The antidote to me is new birth, new life in the kingdom of God. The antidote to me is for God to work in me through his Spirit, as I continue to die to self and live for Christ. As Paul says, “For we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose [not my purpose—it’s not about me but about Him]. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son [to die to self to become like Christ], in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. [To be conformed to the image of Jesus is for God to recreate me to be not me-centered but Christ-centered.] And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”


Jesus hasn’t done this so you can worship yourself on a Sunday. Jesus has done this because God is for us. He is for the saints whom he locates in Jesus, those who are born not of the flesh or the will of man but of God. It is the work of God to save us from our sins and rescue us from death and the rule of Satan. One of the great days of my growth as a disciple is when I understood that “you” in the Bible is plural. That God isn’t just talking to me, Reagan, but to the plural you people of God. There is a danger in thinking that the Bible is a personal love letter from God to individual Reagan, and that danger is that I begin to think it is all about me and not about what God has already done for all his people: God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and has glorified his people in His Kingdom. He did it all and has done it all for his people whom he brings into his kingdom to receive eternal life. And one day, Jesus our King and Judge will say to us, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
Praise Jesus that the antidote to me isn’t some personal improvement plan for Reagan. Instead, it is life in Christ through his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension with the people of God in his kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world. That is the antidote to me: the awesome, everlasting Kingdom of God. Thank you, King Jesus.