Tonight the New England Patriots will play the St. Louis Rams in the 36th Super Bowl. Such a game receives more hype than it probably should but it is an interesting annual game, which concludes the professional Football season. I can remember when the New York Jets played the Baltimore Colts in the third Super Bowl. Although I was very young at the time, as I am sure you were.
Well this year, the Patriots would not even be playing if it had not been for a change in the rules of the game in the last few years. Now with videography, the officials can "review an official call - and make an instantaneous reversal". What this means is that if a coach disagrees with a call of an official, the official will call time out, review the videotapes of the call while on the field, and if, after review agrees that the call was correct, the team who asked for the review will lose one of their time outs, but if the review proves that, yes, the official missed the call, made a mistake, and after review, the head official will reverse the call. A reversal of an official call doesn't often happen, but it does happen and sometimes it makes a difference in the outcome of the entire game, as it did a couple of weeks ago for the New England Patriots. They would not even be in this Super game, if it had not been a reversal of a call against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
This past week our Percy Institute speaker spoke of her awareness of the number of instances in the Bible, where there is a reversal. I began to think about this and sure enough, became acutely aware of this reversal tendency everywhere in the scriptures:
Abraham and Sarah, childless into their old age, their fortune is reversed and they have a baby named Isaac.
Jacob who betrayed his brother Esau, after years of fearful separation goes to his brother, expecting the worst, and is embraced rather than punched out by Esau. Jacob and his family are welcomed home because of this reversal: Jacob amazed by this act of grace says: "I see in your face, the face of God.”
Moses who killed an Egyptian and is quietly hiding out in the Sani Desert, and speaks with a stutter, is called by God to be God's spokesman.
And in the New Testament this "reversal tendency" is everywhere:
And look at the Beatitudes-they are nothing but one reversal after another of the prevailing worldly attitude:
There is an attitude of a reversal of the values of the world and the peoples of the world, everywhere you look in the Bible.
II. The world in which we live today is marching along to the tune of a different drummer. The faith which you and I share, has a reversed attitude toward a lot of things which the world values.
There is a different attitude expressed here than in the world in which we live and move and have our being.
This led Will Willimon, a former Percy Institute speaker, to affirm that sometimes we feel like "An Alien in a Foreign Land."
There are so many reversals of values in the scripture, that it led the Apostle Paul to write in I Corinthians that to the world we look like "fools".
The Philosopher Kierkegaard once suggested that "It is as though someone has slipped into the department store of life during the night and changed all the price tags and the things of real value are marked low and the cheap things of life carry big price tags."
Let me illustrate it in this way: The cheapest of the football players you will see tonight are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, while our teachers, who shape the minds of the next generation, will work for 30 years and never make as much as these athletes make in one year.
People will give more money to a department store for what they put on their back or to an automobile dealer for what they drive around than they give to the church to teach their children Christian values and to Christian causes who do the work of the Kingdom of feeding the hungry and caring for the poor in this community day in and day out.
The 30 second advertisements you will see during the game tonight will cost 1 ½ million dollars and those companies who have the kind of money to purchase such ads, accounting firms, alcoholic beverage companies, etc. simply reflects the values of choice of the American people. What about medical research, what about hunger in Sudan, what about restoring a juvenile, what about teaching the young?
This convoluted value system, which dominates the airways and highways of the nation, have come to our fair city. That's why it is so important when a person like Emmet Smith provides food and gifts for the poor in the community. That's why it is important when Father Bryan Hehir, a Roman Catholic Priest who has just been named head of Catholic Social Services for the nation, willingly gives up his job as President of Harvard Divinity School, and moves into a Catholic parish house in Alexandria on minimum salary. Contrast this to the executives of Enron who first took care of themselves and left retirees with no pension, holding an empty bag. Thank God for people of genuine Christian Character who stand up and stand out for a different way.
Last week we were invited, by our guest speaker, to consider the windows in our Sanctuary. As I have thought about these priceless windows, I became aware of the amazing choice that someone made back in 1908 to choose the scenes of Jesus with the children, with the lambs, with the broken foreigner, with the women. Someone chose to portray Jesus as one who came to identify with the lost, the neglected, the victimized, the overlooked, and the vulnerable. These windows are in sharp contrast to the windows in Westminster Cathedral in London, where the Kings and Poets and Scientists of the ages are memorialized. Someone chose in our worship center, made a value choice and chose what Jesus seemed to value. The children, the broken, the women:
Perhaps you have read in the news recently about the women and children in Afghanistan. President Bush in his "State of the Union" Address, introduced the new President of Afghanistan, a man, and also introduced a member of his cabinet, a woman in charge of women’s rights, a lovely woman who was dressed in a lovely way without the dehumanizing wrap around cloth. Our president was communicating values, and did a nice job with this lady's presence.
The girls in the broken nation of Afghanistan have once again been allowed to come to school. For the five years of the Taliban Muslin rule, the girls were kept in virtual prison in their homes with their mothers, but now they are allowed to come back to school. And come back they have.
An emergency project manager for the United Nation's Children’s Fund, which we support with our UNICEF contributions, Peter Medway, said: "One day the Zargouna Girls School was empty, a derelict shell, the next, teachers and students assembled in bare walls on a cement floor. The next day 200, mostly girls, came to school and now there are 3000 students. The leaders had planned to study the situation, but there is no time to study the situation, for the young girls, hungry to learn and to be free, have come out of the woodwork and from behind locked doors. A Reversal for a nation, thank heavens. I can't help but wonder how many peoples of the earth are suffering and we just don't know about it. One victory at a time, I have to tell myself, maybe that is enough. In Afghanistan, at least for the moment for the women, here is one reversal.
At the same time, the President spoke of the need for better pay for the military. Well, what about better pay for social workers, teachers, nurses, aids in nursing homes. It is a matter of values and our values in the nation are convoluted.
Jesus was often in conflict with the values of the Rulers and the Religious leaders of his day. He didn't fulfill the Messianic expectations of the Jewish teachers. Instead, he came as a "suffering servant", one lowly man to a neglected nation to a people in slavery , and he said: "I have come to seek the lost." "I am among you as one who serves." "I have come to the sick, not the well."
Behind the construction Wall, the Jesus window has now been returned after many months of safe storage. It has been placed in its setting in the high center of our new worship area. Jesus has returned and it will only be a matter of a few weeks before he appears again for you to see that he is here. You can't keep Jesus hidden forever; he will reappear again in his rightful place.
Jesus is present in this the 21st century and in American life and it will be a matter of time until what he values will be paramount to you and to all the peoples of the world. We live in a world that values things, which do not make Jesus’, top ten list.
It must make God wonder about a nation when they value the price of a football player as more important than a teacher or a social worker.
III. A time of a great Reversal is coming. For some of us that day of Reversal has already come. We have lived long enough to see the errors of our ways.
Some of you are struggling with values just now and you can't necessarily be led by the choices of the majority around you. You can't always go with peer group decisions. The world doesn't always put the correct price tags on the things which God values.
If you don't consider a reversal call as to the values of the world, you could very well lose your family, your integrity, your faith, and God’s help. All of this is dependant on your choice and your value system. Just be aware that our faith doesn't always value what our world values.
Maybe you just need to stop the game, review the decisions you have been making, and think about it very carefully, and then reverse a previous decision you have made in order to make sure you are lined up with the will of God for your life.
The scriptures before us today are part of the mystery of our faith. Perhaps only those who are serious about their relationship with God will understand the implications or meaning of these rather intriguing stories.
The first is from the Old Testament and comes from that period of history when Moses, having received the 10 commandments from God on Mount Sinai, behind the cloud cover on the mountain, beyond the wall of ignorance and disobedience which has so often in man's history separated man from God, and there Moses finds himself in the presence of the eternal. While on the mountain, Moses is transfigured/changed because he has now been in the presence of God.
The New Testament story is similar in nature, in that Jesus is on the mountain in God's presence and is transfigured or changed. Matthew, who is Jewish and so often in his gospel draws direct parallels between Moses, the Great Law Giver, and Jesus the New Law Giver, describes well the same mysterious experience for Jesus which occurred so long ago for Moses.
Here on the mountain in Galilee, the disciples get caught up in the experience and perhaps for the first time for them, it dawns on them that Jesus, their friend and teacher, is in the great line of the Spiritual Teachers of Old, Moses the Law Giver and Elijah, the Great Prophet.
In the presence of this great mystery. All things make sense and there is peace. Peter wants to build a shrine or a booth or something to preserve this moment of great insight and peace.
One would hope that our worship services would be transfiguring, holy moments for man in the Eternal God's presence. Experiences when "all things make sense and there is peace." If that doesn't happen, the problem is not God's nor the churches, but ours individually. We have this problem; sometimes it is an attitude problem, a belief problem, ignorance, and disobedience. Sin comes in many different disguises. God will not be present for a person who is disobedient to his commandments, or who robs him of the tithe, or does not love Him with his whole heart and his neighbor as much as himself. For those who live in sin, there is a wall of separation. A division between themselves and God, which appears to be impenetrable. Can't get over it. Can't get through it. Can't get around it! If you live in sin, you can't climb to the mountaintop.
But walls of separation of man from God are made with human hands. They are artificial constructs of you and me. The walls separate us and they can separate us from the mystery of peace and fulfillment.
Consider the Walls of Human History. They seemed so permanent, but they were only temporary:
The Great Wall of China, began 200 years before the birth of Jesus to be used for defense, now it is only a tourist attraction. The Iron Curtain separated Communism from the Free World for the better part of a century, but it cannot now be found.
The Berlin Wall-which from 1961-1989 was a barrier between East and West is now in pieces.
There is something about a wall that God doesn't seem to like. Those who build walls to keep people out more times than not find that they are walled in. Walls are restricting, confiding, sometimes suffocating.
Building walls separates folks, and fences and walls are simply not a welcomed site, by the Creator who built the earth as a garden without hedgerows nor bared wire fences.
What God couldn't sustain in creation because of the sin of imperfect human beings over the years of history, finally and at last, in Jesus Christ, he broke down the dividing wall, which separated man from the creator. The pattern of our story is creation, separation, and reconciliation.
What Moses and Jesus experienced on the mountain, in the face-to-face encounter with God, an experience of togetherness, not separation, is now available to us.
The Apostle Paul in II Corinthians 5:18 writes that "Christ has reconciled us to himself.” In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, but destroying the wall of separation, uniting that which had been separated from him.” And in Romans 8:5 “Nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
Look at the Biblical illustrations. Adam, disobedient in the Garden, hiding behind the wall, but God came in the evening looking for him and calling his name.
Moses had killed an Egyptian soldier and built the wall of an entire desert between himself and God and his family, but God burned through the desert and in the burning bush, called Moses to lead the Hebrews to Freedom.
Elijah hid behind the wall of his anger, but sought God on the mountain and God who didn't come in earthquake, wind, nor fire, came in a still small voice.
Jeremiah hid behind the wall of his inadequacy saying "I am only a youth" but God broke through the wall of inadequacy as he always does and said: "But I am with you, I will put my words in your mouth."
Jonah built a sea wall putting distance between himself and God, but God swam through the waters like a great whale and carried Jonah as a reluctant missionary to Nineveh.
Thomas hid behind the wall of his doubts after Jesus' death, but God stepped through the locked door and the wall of separation, and said: "Touch my hands, place your hand in my side and do not doubt, but believe."
Zacchaes had built a wall of love of money between himself and his fellow Jews, and longingly from the limb of a distant tree, looked at Jesus, but Jesus said: "Zacchaes, come down out of that tree, I am going to your house today."
Do you get it? God doesn't like a wall. And sooner or later, probably sooner than later, God will take down the wall which is separating you from your greater self.
The wall, which is separating you from becoming who you are destined to become, will come down, when you give yourself to the will of God.
The Wall, which is preventing you from knowing God’s will for your life and from having the strength to be faithful to what you know, will sooner or later come down. The wall that separates you from peace and happiness.
Your death is the ultimate, coming down of the wall of separation between you and God. One day you will stand before the mysterious one, with all things known, before him before whom no secrets are hide.
It doesn't have to be a day of fear, and neither do these days have to be days for uneasiness or hiding. You don't have to live fearful of a Grand Jury or Congressional Investigation. You don't have to wait until that coming day when you step behind the wall, which now separates you from God. Today can be that day!
Summary: In the morning, this construction wall, which has cut our sanctuary in half for the better part of this past year, is coming down. It’s coming down will open new space in our worship center and a new chapter in our church's long history. The coming down of the wall creates new welcoming space, new potential for excellence, new possibilities for experiencing God's presence.
Let not a wall of timidity, disbelief, sin, doubt, or selfishness, separate you from your potential. Let not any sin cut you off from God's presence in which you will experience peace beyond understanding, and love beyond imagination.
Know this, the walls, even the ones you have carefully built, are coming down!
This rather interesting story of Jesus' temptation is filled with encouragement for each and all of us, for we are all tempted of the evil powers of this world. And yet, as Jesus, we can overcome!
Sometimes when I pray the Lord's Prayer, I just move through the words out of rote memory. It’s like the words said, when I once prayed at bedtime with my mother: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord, my soul to take, amen, Momma, can I have some water?"
But sometimes the words of the prayer which Jesus taught to his disciples and the Christian Church has claimed for just over 2000 years of human history, just grips my heart.
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,
And since Sept. 11th, deliver us from evil.
And today in the light of this Matthew scripture, which focuses on the temptation stories of Jesus: "Lead us not into temptation"
I have never been at peace with this translation, of Jesus' Aramaic words. "Lead us not into temptation” seems to imply that God sometimes is out there testing our metal, intentionally putting us in tempting situations just to see how we will do. Like the Old Testament story of Job in which the storyteller seems to imply that God made a deal with the devil to test Job to see if he was faithful to God only because everything was going his way. Whether God actually made such a deal or not, we don't know, but what we do know from the story is that Job remained faithful, finally saying to God: "Even though you slay me, I will trust in you."
But the way in which this sentence in the Lord's prayer is phrased, "lead us not into temptation," seems to imply that God might intentionally test us by using temptations such as Jesus had to deal with, to see how faithful we might be.
The situation of the time of temptation was this: Jesus was beginning his ministry at the age of 30 and sensing as many a young man does, a sense of invisibility, all things are possible.
He knows that he is to proclaim the arrival of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God was and is understood as "The Reign of God" in the here and now. Today is the day of salvation. Today the rule of God is in effect. And considering how best to communicate his message, it came to Jesus, Magic, Mystery, Power, and Authority-
“Command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
“Throw yourself down from the top of the temple.”
“Become a political/military leader.”
One by one, Jesus, aware of the guidance of God through the Holy Scriptures (from Deuteronomy), he rejects these luring possibilities, and goes on to choose the way of the suffering servant, the loving, obedient servant of God. Obedient even unto death.
"Man shall not live by bread alone"
"You shall not tempt the Lord, thy God”
"You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only you shall serve."
I have, in my struggle with this "lead us not into temptation” verse, concluded that it would be best to translate this sentence not as "lead us not unto temptation," but as "strengthen us when the time of temptation comes." It is less accusative of God and it is true that the time of temptation comes to us all. Someone has said, "Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell." We have this great weakness.
We are all sinners. We are all tempted to compromise what we know is right, good, and of God. In this modern age, especially when it comes to certain dimensions of our life, we are vulnerable. Richard Foster has placed his figure on our vulnerability in his book on spiritual discipline, entitled Money, Power, and Sex.
Brad Stine, a comedian says: "It's really hard to be human. Look at the prototypes, Adam and Eve. That's a lot of pressure, being the first people. You make one mistake, and everybody hears about it. You can only imagine, Adam answering these embarrassing questions about how he messed up, said: "Okay, for the 5 millionth time, I was sitting around, minding my own business and she goes…”Want a bite?" It's not easy being human.
Wasn't it interesting this week in the Olympics controversy about the figure skating event where the Canadian couple seemed to be flawless but the Russian couple received the gold. The kids themselves seem to have handled it well, but others, including my attitude, and perhaps yours, was that we felt justice had been violated or someone cheated. It seemed fair, seeing that there was unfairness among at least one of the judges, that the gold was subsequently also given to the young Canadian skaters.
But we have seen controversy before in the figure skating area, when Tonya Harding’s husband attacked Nancy Kerrigan. Roy Jones has said, “It’s all about money.”
Summary: The good news to be found in the temptation story about Jesus at the beginning of his ministry is not that we are all tempted, even Jesus, although that is certainly true, but the good news is that Jesus survived and overcame the temptation, and so can you.
You can be a figure skating judge and not fall victim to pressure. You can be a political leader and be a true servant of the people.
God has delivered us from the snare of the fouler, from the claws of the devil, for the mistakes of passions of money, power, and sex. God has saved us from our natural inclination toward selfishness.
Yes, we are all tempted and yes we do make mistakes, but we can overcome. God does answer the prayer of petition to "strength us for the time of temptation". Today is a new day and the fact that Jesus overcame the temptation of the evil powers which came to him in the wilderness of Judea, gives hope to us that we can overcome the evil powers which come to us in the wilderness of this 21st century.
In Jesus' life we see the pattern:
Birth, temptation, faithfulness, obedience, resurrection
For us we are born, we will be tempted, but as we are faithful and obedient,
though death comes, yet finally and ultimately there is resurrection/victory.
You can and you shall overcome!
Here in the book of Psalms, the poet raises the question: From whence does our help come? The question implies such answers as: the Majestic Mountains? The Mighty Armies of the nations? The lands and possessions, which we claim as our own? In our health? In our jobs? Is ultimate security to be found in our relationships with friends or our mate?
But the poet answers his own question:
"Our help is in the Lord, who made heaven and hearth. He will be your guardian; He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord will be your shade in the desert sun. He will keep you from all evil; he will give you strength in the time of temptation. From whence does our help come? It comes from the Lord.”
In the time of the Exile in Babylon, five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the Hebrews were asked by their captives to play their musical instruments and to sing for them the songs of Zion and they replied, "How can we sing the Lord's Song in a strange land?" How do I promise good news when there is such bad news all around?
And sometimes when things are not going right, when life isn't working out just as I have envisioned, or hoped, or needed for things to work out, I think the same thing: "How can I sing the songs of the Lord, in a strange land"
And the truth is: In so many different areas of human life just now, things are not right, not as they should be, not as we need them to be, and not God wants them to be!
Elected officials are more like deal makers rather than community servants.
Individuals are not lovingly supportive, but too often gossipy, judgmental and downright destructive.
A medical doctor is convicted as a drug salesman rather than a physician of healing.
Religious fanatics, filled with hate, kill other human beings in the name of the Holy God.
People pierce their skins with obscene tattoos, and sex becomes a violent toy and abortion is used as birth control to take the life of unborn children because the child is unplanned or unwanted.
Adolescent kids drink and drive, rape and steal for fun.
Children are abused and hungry. And two boys kill with a baseball bat their adult parent. Things are not as they should be!
A dollar at a concert is mere chump change and the same dollar in church is regarded as big bucks. People are not as generous as they should be. Look at what you give to the church and every charitable organization and compare that with last month's check to your credit card company. It's not that we don't have money; it's a matter of what we are doing with the money we have.
This week I helped participate with others in financing a young Liberian's escape from the rebels in his war torn country. Why do people have to run for their life from their own homes? Is there no peace in the land? How long will our airports have to be under armed guard?
Things are not as they ought to be!
Adults curse and take the name of the Lord in vain.
The Lord's day is treated as a day to shop, or a day to do the yard, or a day for soccer, golf, or tennis tournaments, or a day to work, or a day to do anything except what the day was intended for: and that was and is: to worship the Lord our God and to rest from our labors.
Things are not as God wants them to be!
II. How can I sing the songs of Zion, in a strange and confused land? How can I sing the Lord's song when evil, injustice, oppression, pain and death is still on the rampage? I will tell you how and why:
Because after all is said and done, God and God's ways still stand.
Because after the dust settles from the walls that have been knocked down in this sad world, and after the ash of the burning buildings settle to the earth, Jesus appears again. When all else fails, Jesus is still standing. After death has done what it could to the young son of Joseph and Mary, He comes back Resurrected and in Glory. After old age and death has done what it can to our frail and fragile bodies, there is the peace of death and the hope of eternity. After the dead of winter, springtime comes. The Robins always come back.
I can sing the songs of Zion because Christ lives, He lives within my heart and in the center of this city. He is visible yet again at the high point of our worship center. “Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living just because he lives."
There is something about a relationship with Jesus Christ that the world's destructive ways cannot erase nor ultimately ignore. You cannot ultimately destroy, desecrate, or deny the validity or vitality of God's love for us.
Therefore, the Apostle Paul affirmed, "nothing, neither principalities or powers, not things present nor things to come, tribulation nor distress, persecution or famine, peril nor sword, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus!"
That's why we can sing the Lord's song in a strange land.
Our confidence and hope began as stories which our people have told over centuries of time: Our people were in slavery and they were freed (Remember Moses in the desert before the burning bush, on the mountain, standing before Pharaoh. Our people were in exile and they were restored (Ezekiel in a valley of old dry bones asked "Can these old bones live again?)
Martyrs suffer but are vindicated. (Daniel in the Lion's den)
Our Lord was crucified-in the cross of Christ I glory.
The cross is empty and the grave did not hold him…
Not arbitrary belief or old dogma, but stories of things, which have actually happened. And there are things, which will yet happen in the lives of those who believe.
Summary: The reason we can sing our songs of faith in a broken, unjust, and dying world, is because brokenness and injustice and death will not have the final word. Never has and never will. Lift up your heads and hearts, The King of Glory is coming for you.
What we had hoped for in the most recent construction of the sanctuary is that rather than being focused down into a limited space, our eyes in divine worship would be lifted up. And we thank God that this has now happened! In time it will happen for you emotionally and spiritually!
It is as we lift our eyes up from the problems, which plague us upward, that we will see beyond our limitations and see the risen, living Christ. It is always as we look up that we see hope for it is from above that Christ comes to us and calls us by name;
He comes to the loneliness within us;
Comforts that which is wounded in us;
Seeks for that which is lost within us;
Releases us from that which has dominion over us;
Cleanses us of that which does not belong to our best self;
Renews that which feels drained within us;
Names that which is formless within us;
Consecrates and guides that which is strong within us;
Restores us for this world that needs us;
Reaches out in endless love to others through us.