"It's All About Love". A Sermon on Good News Sunday at Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"It's All About Love"

1 John 4:7-21; John 15:9-17; Isaiah 43:1-7

Today is officially Good News Sunday at Littlefield!   We told people that—if they brought someone to worship today—we promise that they would hear some good news! 

            I hope that people were paying attention to the scripture passages today as they were being read…and the words of the Psalm we sang.  Have you heard some good news?  [I hope so.  That takes a bit of the pressure off me, now.  Though I’ll do my best.]

            I do believe we have good news to share--  important and transformative-- life-changing good news.  Sometimes I think I risk sounding like a “broken record.”   Some of you have heard me say it over and over again, in various ways.   But the more I’ve studied the scriptures over the years and looked for the main themes and the big picture,  the more I’ve become  convinced that our Christian faith is all about love. 

            God loves us.  We are—all of us-- God’s beloved children.  Our faith is about responding to God’s love for us and for all God’s children by loving God and loving all the people God loves. 

            The Old Testament includes a lot of stories and verses that a lot of us find puzzling and troubling.  Yet one of the major themes in the Old Testament is of God’s steadfast mercy.  One of my Old Testament teachers at seminary did her doctoral dissertation on the recurring theme of “hesed”, which is a Hebrew word that can be translated as “mercy,” or “steadfast loving-kindness.”   One of the other prominent themes in the Old Testament is how God keeps sending prophets to call people back to living in right relationship with God and with their neighbors…  and how those right relationships are characterized by love and justice and mercy.

             The gospel message in the New Testament proclaims in various ways how Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth,  to embody God’s love for us   and to show us how to live in the way of love.  Jesus preached about the “kingdom of God” or the “reign of God” or “God’s dream for us”  and how we are called to live into it.       

            When people asked Jesus what the most important commandment is, he said what’s most important is two-fold:  Love God.  Love your neighbor. 

In the parable of the Good Samaritan,  Jesus made it clear that your neighbor is anybody we encounter—even people who are different…  even people we might see as enemies. 

            In his last talk with his disciples, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  People will know you are my followers by the way you love one another.”[1]

            In the gospel lesson we heard today, Jesus tells his followers, “If you keep my commandments—the commandments to love God and love the neighbor—we will abide in his love.  He tells his disciples that he has said these things so that we may have his joy, and that our joy may be complete.”

            Jesus made it very clear that it’s all about love.  So I keep wondering how so many people who call themselves Christians could be so confused about this.

 

            We live in such a broken and fearful world.   Our government spends vast amounts of resources fighting terrorism.  Alarm systems to protect homes, businesses, and even churches are commonplace.  

            In this election season, we hear some politicians speaking to the fears and prejudices of many voters.  There are people who are afraid of Muslims… people afraid of African-Americans—especially males.  Muslims are afraid of being attacked.   African-Americans are afraid of being shot by police officers who are afraid of them.  

            So many people in our society fear and mistrust those who are different:  Muslims…  people whose skin is a different color…  immigrants.    

            We live in a nation wracked by gun violence.  Every year in the United States, on average,  more than 111,000 people are shot in murders, assaults, suicides & suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, or by police intervention, and over 32,000 die.      That’s an average of 306 people shot every day, and 90 of them die.   Every day, 48 children and teens are shot, and 7 die.  Precious lives, of beloved children of God—lost. 

            There are too many people in our nation and around the world who are hungry or food insecure.

            Around the world, there’s war… genocide… people living under occupation. 

            The list could go on and on.  The bad news in our local communities, in our nation, and around the globe can feel overwhelming.

            In the midst of all this brokenness and fear and injustice, how are we-- as people of faith-- called to live?

           

            “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.  Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God--  for God is love….  Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.    No one has ever seen God.  If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.”

            What I hear in this is that loving one another is a spiritual practice, and that-- as we work at loving one another—God is living in us and working in us and perfecting love in us….

            “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love casts out fear.  Whoever fears has not reached maturity in love.”

            We love because God first loved us.   If we say, “I love God” but hate our brother or sister, we’re lying about loving God.   As we heard in First John,  “those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen—cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

            Fear divides us.  It leads to violence and destruction.   Hatred and fear are toxic.  They harm us as persons… and as a society.

            But there is a way out.  It is not the way of fear, and hate and violence;  it is the way of love.    In Dr. Martin Luther King’s words:  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
            Fifty-three years after Dr. King gave his “I have a dream speech” during the March on Washington, we can see that we have made progress.   Just yesterday, at the opening of the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, President Obama, the First Lady, and 99-year-old Ruth Bonner, the daughter of a man born into slavery, together rang the bell to celebrate the opening. 

 But if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we have a long way to go.  And so… we need to be in prayer.   We need to open our lives to God’s call in our lives, as we live further into God’s dream for the world—the world that God so loves.   

            We need to come together as a community of faith--  not for the sake of coming to a place called church--  but for the sake of coming together as part of the Body of Christ… for the sake of gathering as disciples who need to learn and practice living in the way of love.   We need to encourage one another… and love one another.  We need to love one another into becoming more and more the beloved children of God we were created to be.  
            I remember one stewardship season John Haugen stood before us and told us about how he and Reema came to be regular attenders here, rather than coming a few times a year.  He said he’d been so disheartened by the outcome of an election and some of the things that were going on in the world.  And then he said, “But what am I doing to make things better?”  So they promised themselves that they’d come every Sunday for a while, and then they just kept coming. 
            John was invited to share his faith, and I’ll never forget his witness.  He told us, “I’m a better person because I’m a part of the people here.” 
            I think that’s an important part of why we need to come together as a community of faith.  We keep getting reminded that God loves us, that we are beloved children of God.  We’re challenged to love God fully and to love our neighbors, and we encourage one another.

When we understand ourselves to be beloved children of God, when we start seeing others as God’s beloved children, it changes us.  It’s transformative.

            God isn’t finished with any of us yet, and our love isn’t yet perfect, and it hasn’t yet cast out all our fears.   But God is still working in and among and through us,   through the power of the Holy Spirit-- leading and empowering us to become more patient and kind and generous… and helping us to become less envious or controlling… less irritable or resentful. 
            God is still working in us, guiding us further into the truth, re-forming us, teaching us what it means to go out and be the church out in the world.

            The good news is that as we grow more and more into God’s way of love, God’s love will cast out our fears.

            In a broken and fearful world,  we can trust in the Holy Spirit to give us courage to pray without ceasing.   As we work with others for justice, freedom and peace, our lives will be transformed, and we can change the world.     

            So be it! Amen!

          

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 26, 2016

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[1] John 13:31-35

Interfaith Prayers for Peace on the Sunday before International Day of Peace, at Littlefield Presbyterian Church in Dearborn, Michigan, on September 20, 2015. A meditation from a Christian perspective. We also heard a recitaiton from the Qur'an, a short sermon from Imam Elahi, and selections from the Hebrew scriptures and prayers from Cantor Roger Skully.

Luke 19:41-42; 2 Corinthians 5:16-20

"As Jesus came near and saw the city (Jerusalem), he wept over it, saying, "If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!  But now they are hidden from your eyes."

For those of us who long for a better, more peaceful world, it’s  painful to see so much of what’s going on in the world… in our nation… and in our communities.  It can make us weep!

            For many of us, it’s the images of children that haunt us the most.  A staggering number of Syrian refugees are children and teens.  We were shocked and grieved a few weeks ago to see the photo of the body of a toddler washed up on the shore.  And now we learn that another refugee child has been found dead on the shore, and more are missing at sea.

            Many of us mourn when we remember there are millions of other children who die each year on this planet with little notice-- of malnutrition and of illnesses that could be prevented or treated if the world cared enough.

            Here in the United States, the Department of Agriculture reports that around 10 percent of households with children are food insecure—unable to provide adequate, nutritious food for their children.  More than 1 in 9 children in Michigan live in extreme poverty, at less than half the poverty-level income.

            The rate of gun deaths in children and teens in the United States is shockingly high.

            Many of us are troubled by events like the massacre of 9 African-Americans gathered at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston for Bible study in June by a white racist   and other race-related violence.
            In a neighbor city—Sterling Heights—there’s an ugly conflict over a request to build a new mosque.
            The list could go on and on… 

            I don’t know about you, but I find myself mourning all this violence and need and destruction… and longing to do something.  But it feels overwhelming.

            So--  what can we do?  In the midst of all the violence and hatred and apathy in our society… in the midst of racism and Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism… in the midst of all the need-- it’s easy to feel overwhelmed… and despairing.  What can one person  or just a few people do?

             

            We can begin by praying together… and forging bonds of friendship and solidarity… getting to know one another better… opening our hearts and minds to one another… and finding ways to work together to change the world. 

            Some of us have been working on these things.  Imam Elahi and I have been getting to know each other and working together in our Dearborn Area Interfaith Network group (and its predecessor Dearborn Area Ministerial Association) for the last 18 years.  Cantor Roger Skully has been involved with other interfaith groups in metro Detroit. 

            Some of you are part of one or more interfaith Facebook groups whose purpose is to build bridges of understanding—hence the names “The Bridge” and “Our Bridge.” 

            In the Christian tradition, we believe that Jesus came to embody God’s love in the world.  When people came to Jesus and asked him which commandment in the scriptures was the most important, Jesus answered, “’You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” 

            In Luke’s version of this, he tells how someone said, “Who is my neighbor?”  and Jesus went on to make it clear in the Parable of the Good Samaritan that our neighbor is anyone God puts in our path--  even someone we might have considered to be an enemy.[1]

            In the center of the passage we heard a few minutes ago from the apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, we hear that God has reconciled us to God’s self through Christ, and has entrusted us with the ministry of reconciliation.    Christians are not to look at anyone from a human point of view.  We’re not to see people who are different in some way as those other people.  We’re called to look at people through God’s eyes of love and to see our common humanity.    

            I think we need to spend more time doing interfaith scripture study, so I could share a passage like one of the ones we’ve heard today, and say, “Here’s a text that’s important to our faith.  What’s a text from your tradition that connects with it?  Where’s the common ground?”  Can we do that?  Will we do that? 

                       

            Our commitment to peace and justice and reconciliation, and our love for our own children, demands that we provide a better inheritance for them.”

            On this Sunday before International Day of Peace, we are challenged to re-commit ourselves to PEACE… to live our lives as if we believe that peace is possible.

            Christians…Muslims…Jews…Sikhs…Hindus…Buddhists… and all people of faith and goodwill —this is a time for us to find ways to come together and work for a better, more peaceful world.

            There’s hard work to be done.   But we can work together to make a difference.

             After worship, we invite you to stay for a time, to enjoy refreshments and conversation.   I hope you’ll make a new friend today.  Talk with one another about your families—especially your children or grandchildren and what kind of a world you want to leave for them.

            U2 sings a song that begins like this:

            “Every generation gets a chance to change the world….”

            Today, let’s renew our commitment to change the world, beginning today. 

            May it be so!

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[1] Luke 10:25-37; also Matthew 22:36-40; Mark 12:28-31

"Why Are You Afraid?" A sermon on Mark 4:35-41, preached at Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Sunday after the massacre of 9 people at prayer at Emanuel AME Church.

         “Why are you afraid?   Have you still no faith?”

            During the dark days of World War II, the World Council of Churches adopted a symbol which had been important to the early church during times of danger, hardship, and persecution:  the church universal is depicted as a storm-tossed boat, with a cross for a mast.

            Over the centuries, the ship has been a prominent symbol for the church in Christian art and architecture.  In fact, the area of the church or cathedral where the congregation gathers is called the "nave,"  which is the Latin word for "ship."  When the early Christians tried to describe what it was like to be a Christian and to be a member of the church, they sometimes compared it to being on a ship with Christ and trying to cope with the wind and waves that buffet them so often.               

            In today’s Gospel lesson, we find the disciples on a journey.  The journey is not one of their own choosing, but one they've been commanded to take.  

            It must have been a long day.  Jesus had been teaching beside the sea.  There had been a huge crowd gathered on the shore, while he sat in the boat and spoke in parables about the Reign of God.

            When evening came, Jesus said to the disciples, "Let us go across to the other side of the sea."  So, leaving the crowd behind, they set off across the sea. 

            Now, Peter and the other fishermen among Jesus' inner circle of disciples knew from experience the danger of sudden storms on the Sea of Galilee.  Throughout the Bible,  the sea is a metaphor for the place where chaos and the demonic reside.   Moses leads the people from bondage to liberation through a sea.   In some of the psalms, the sea threatens those who would follow God.[1]    In the Psalms and in the book of Revelations, God's power to calm the sea is affirmed.[2]   As Gary Charles writes:  “For Mark the sea is a metaphor for the demonic and apocalyptic chaos that confronts Jesus, terrorizes his disciples and threatens the future of the gospel."[3]

            A lot of us are trying to live by faith in the midst of a life that can get chaotic and precarious.   Things happen that are beyond our control.  Cancer cells grow in our bodies.   Addictions resurface in the lives of loved ones. People in power abuse it and create destruction for those in their power."[4] 

            This week, what happened in Charleston, South Carolina really tossed a lot of our boats.  For a lot of people, it’s felt pretty stormy.   So it’s ironic that the middle name of the alleged killer is “Storm.”  But I don’t want to say much about him right now.  Whenever terror strikes like this, we pay attention to the shooter, as we try to figure out how this could happen—how this young man who looks like a kid could do what he did.

            For now I want to focus on people who gathered on Wednesday evening for their regular Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.  The Rev. Clemente Pinckney, age 41, was a state senator and the senior pastor of Emanuel.  He was married and the father of two children.  He had a graduate degree and was a graduate of the Lutheran Seminary of the South. 

            Cynthia Hurd, age 54, had dedicated her lift to serving and improving the lives of others as a librarian and library manager.  The Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, age 45, was a pastor at Emanuel, and was also a speech therapist and high school girls track and field coach at Goose Creek High School.  She was the mother of Chris Singleton, a college student whom some of us saw talking about love and forgiveness on TV, and two younger children.

            Tywanza Sanders was 26, with a business administration degree—known as a “quiet, well-known student who was committed to his education.”

            Ethel Lance, who was 70, had attended Emanuel most of her life and had worked as a custodian.  She is remembered as “funny and a pleasure to be around…a wonderful mother and grandmother.”

            Susie Jackson, 87, was a longtime church member.  Depayne Middleton Doctor was 49.  The mother of four sang in Emanuel’s choir, and previously directed a community development program in Charleston County.  In December, she started a new job as admissions coordinator at her alma mater, Southern Wesleyan University.  She is remembered as “a warm and enthusiastic leader.”

            The Rev. Daniel Simmons, age 74,  had previously pastored another church in the Charleston area.  He attended the Bible study every Wednesday night. 

            Myra Thompson, age 59, was the wife of the Rev. Anthony Thompson, the vicar of Holy Trinity Reformed Episcopal Church in Charleston.

            Felicia Sanders, a 57-year-old grandmother and mother of Ty Sanders, survived by playing dead among the bodies and saved her granddaughter by making her play dead.  She saw her son try to talk the shooter out of shooting them…and then saw him killed.

            As Otis Moss III describes what happened,  members of Emanuel gathered Wednesday evening with their pastor in what should have been a safe place, armed with nothing but their Bibles.[5]  Seated in their midst was a young white man who was a stranger,  yet welcomed as a friend. As Rev. Moss says, “The black church embraces all. We accord a certain degree of respect and special recognition to those who do not look like us.”  The young man was seated next to the pastor, “where he returned the church's hospitality with unimaginable inhumanity.”
            Rev. Moss describes Emanuel AME Church as “a national treasure.”  Yolanda Pierce, professor of African American religion and literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, reminds us that "the AME denomination was founded as a protest against racism" and "the black church was birthed as a sanctuary from white violence."  This is true of Emanuel AME, affectionately known as "Mother" Emanuel.  Its storied history dates back almost 200 years. Mother Emanuel endured despite being burned down, outlawed and destroyed by an earthquake.[6]
            Emanuel AME has been the target of racist attacks, legal harassment and arson.  Each time, Emanuel Church has responded with love rooted in justice, by teaching literacy, producing leaders, protesting unequal treatment, fighting for economic parity and demanding the confederate flag be replaced by a symbol for all South Carolinians. Mother Emanuel embodies liberation, love and reconciliation.[7]

            This particular storm will pass.  But for now, for some of us, the storm feels overwhelming.  For now, it’s time to grieve the loss of precious lives.  Lives that matter to their families and friends and their community.  Our brothers and sisters in Christ, whose lives need to matter to us.   As the apostle Paul writes in First Corinthians 12,  “when one member of the body of Christ suffers, the whole body suffers as well.”

            I imagine our African-American brothers and sisters around the country may be feeling uneasy as they gather for worship today and in the weeks to come.  I imagine if I were African-American and were attending an African-American church, I might be feeling uneasy if I  saw an unfamiliar white face, someone who nods but doesn’t seem to warm up to the people around him.   Could he be a Charleston copy-cat?  Could he be a white supremacist?  I wonder how safe I’d feel.

            There have been at least six shooting incidents at houses of worship in our nation in the past seven years,[8]  along with all the shootings at schools and elsewhere.  It seems like a storm of violence and hatred has permeated our society. 

            Meanwhile, back in the boat.  The disciples must have been exhausted after the day's activities.  They may have had some qualms about crossing to the other side of the sea, which was gentile territory.  As Jews of that time, it would have been a new idea to them that God's salvation included non-Jews, people who were “other.” 

            The winds were battering against the boat.  It was filling with water. The disciples had plenty of reason to be terrified.

            In the midst of all of this, where is God?  "Don't you care that we are perishing?"

            Jesus had been sleeping through the storm, which was a sign that he trusted in God to keep them all safe.

            Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace!  Be still!"          

            And the wind ceased--  and there was calm.

            Then Jesus said to them, "Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?"

            When we follow Jesus, when we obey the command to cross over to “the other side,” to be with others who are different from us… when terror strikes, the storm can feel overwhelming.      

            Jesus rebukes the storm:  “Peace! Be still!”   But the peace of Christ is never passive.  It’s never just an absence of conflict or trouble.  We are called to “pursue peace with everyone.”[9]

                       

            My friend and Lutheran colleague Colleen Niemann forwarded  a response to the massacre in Charleston from the Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Bishop Eaton writes, “It has been a long season of disquiet in our country.  From Ferguson to Baltimore, simmering racial tensions have boiled over into violence.  But this ... the fatal shooting of nine African Americans in a church is a stark, raw manifestation of the sin that is racism….”

            Do you not care that we are perishing?  Do you not care that church folk, at prayer, are massacred?  Do you not care that men and women are imprisoned at rates never seen before?  Do you not care that young people are dying?  Do you not care about the disparity in educational opportunities?  The list could go on.   Do you not care?

            What keeps us from having the difficult but necessary conversations about race and privilege that can lead to the healing of the sickness in our society?

            Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?

            I’ve been heartsick over what happened this week in Charleston.  I’m heartsick that people keep dying.  Yet I have to admit that I’ve felt afraid to speak too prophetically about this.  I like to be liked and appreciated.  I don’t like it when people are upset over a sermon.   

            But Jesus calls us to set out in the boat.  We’re called to pursue peace.  We are entrusted with a ministry of reconciliation.  We are called to love all the people God loves. 

            If we are going to follow Jesus, we need to follow him into the storm.  If we want to stand with Jesus, we need to stand with those who have been weathering the storm for a long time, because that’s where Jesus is.  It can be scary.

            But I’m hopeful.  I really want to be hopeful.  I’m hopeful that now is the time.  That now is the time when we say “enough.”  Now is the time for us to stop being afraid of the hard conversations about race and privilege and gun violence.  Now is the time for us to commit ourselves  to living into the Beloved Community, which is just another way of talking about the Kingdom of God.  Now is the time to find ways to work together with our neighbor congregations, to find energy and encouragement from one another—because we’re all in the boat together. 

            Jesus never promised us that we could stay safely on the shore, where things are familiar and comfortable.  But he does promise to be with us always. 

            We can trust in God’s promises,  that God will be with us always.  That’s what “Emmanuel” means.  God with us!

            Amen. 

           

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

June 21, 2015          

           

           

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[1] Ps. 69:1, 14-15.

[2] Ps. 46:1-3; 89:8-9; 93:3-4; Rev. 21:1.

[3] Gary Charles, Preaching Mark in Two Voices, p. 60.

[4] I am grateful to Alyce MacKenzie, in “Choppy Seas, Calm Spirits,” posted at Edgy Exegesis at Patheos Progressive portal.

[5] Otis Moss III, “The Doors of the Church are Open, at Huffington Post.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-otis-moss-iii/the-doors-of-the-church-are-open_b_7626920.html

[6] Moss.

[7] Moss.

[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/18/shootings-places-of-worship_n_7612520.html?1434644712

[9] Hebrews 12:14

"Is the World About to Turn?": A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church for Third Sunday of Advent

The third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been known as “Gaudete Sunday,” from the Latin word for joy.  That’s why we lit the pink candle today.  Yet, as I meditated on the scripture passages for this Sunday, I kept thinking about how painful a season this can be for many people--  people who are lonely, people who are grieving the loss of a loved one,  people who are struggling with illness and wondering where God is in the midst of it all…  people who are depressed,  people who are trying to maintain their sobriety during a season of parties… people who are too poor to be a part of the festival of extravagance the merchants would have us believe is what Christmas is all about. 

            We remember that yesterday was the 1-year anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut.  We mourn the loss of the children who died there and the principal and guidance counselor and teachers who gave their lives, and know that the lives of their loved ones will never be the same.

            We try to make sense of what happened, but then there’s another shooting in Colorado last Friday, not very far from the massacre that took place at Columbine High School.   And we’re reminded that in the year since the school shooting at Sandy Hook, at least 194 children more children have been killed with guns.  Such senseless loss of all those precious lives!

            There’s so much wrong in our world, and in the midst of all of it, a lot of people may be wondering:  where’s the good news?

            I think when we look around our world,  it exposes our brokenness as human beings and as a society and reminds us how much we need a Savior.  We live in a broken world.  We’re still waiting for the kingdom of God, and we yearn for it.  We wait and hope for what we can’t yet see.

            In the gospel lesson we just heard, we hear John beginning to doubt his own message.   This is the same John who recognized Jesus from his mother's womb, leaping with joy when her cousin Mary came to visit.  John the prophet, who lived in the desert eating locusts and honey, preaching to anyone who would listen: "Prepare the way of the Lord!"   John the Baptizer, who knew Jesus the moment he laid eyes on him at the river Jordan and baptized him and was there when heaven opened and the spirit of God descended on Jesus like a dove.    What's happened to him—this man of faith-- that he should suddenly doubt Jesus' identity?    

            "Are you the one who is to come...  or shall we look for another?  John had envisioned a mighty and powerful Messiah, come to sweep away all the wickedness of the world and destroy evil.  Jesus will set the world straight, and justice and righteousness will rule the day.  The oppressed will be liberated and the hungry will be fed.  Those who resist, those who don't believe,  those who continue to sin--  they'll be separated from the righteous like chaff from the wheat.  They'll be swept away and cast into the "unquenchable fire."

            That's what John expected and proclaimed.  That's what drew crowds to hear his message and be baptized.  Then Jesus arrived on the scene.  John stepped aside...  and essentially said,  "Go for it, Jesus!  Bring in the Kingdom!  Wipe out the old age, and bring in the new!"  And nothing happened.

            By this time, Jesus has preached the Sermon on the Mount.  He's healed people possessed by demons   and raised Jairus' daughter from the dead.  His ministry has taken root, and a crowd of believers around him is growing.

            But nothing was happening the way John had thought it would.  The Messiah was supposed to change things.  He was supposed to fix it so that the wicked no longer prospered,   and the righteous people, like himself, were saved. 

            Things weren't going well for John.  He was in prison.  Nothing was happening the way he'd envisioned it.  Jesus wasn't throwing anybody into unquenchable fire or wiping out sinners.  No.  He was visiting them in their homes, and even eating with them!

            So John finds himself not living in a new era-- but imprisoned in a very old world dungeon, with a lot of questions and doubts.   So he sends his disciples to Jesus to ask, "Are you the one who is to come?  Or are we to wait for another?" 

            John's question may be our question as well.  By simple virtue of our being here this morning—especially this Sunday traveling through unplowed streets and treacherous highways--  we make the statement that we-- like John--  have recognized the Messiah in Jesus.  In a variety of different ways, we're trying to prepare the way of the Lord.  Every week, we come here and confess our faith that Jesus is Lord.  Every week, we search for new, more effective ways to teach and preach and live that truth.  Along the way, we've acquired some definite ideas about our Lord.  As students of the Bible...  of tradition...  and of our own experience, we have certain expectations of Jesus and what he will do for us his people--  sooner or later.

            But—if we’re honest with ourselves-- who hasn't had doubts?  Who has never asked John’s question in times of  disappointment or anger or loss or confusion?  Jesus, are you the one?  Or shall we look for another?                         

            Who has never looked to other things for our joy and excitement and security-- haven't we gone off to look for another?

            It’s hard to wait.  It’s hard to be patient. We tune into the news, and sometimes it’s hard not to wonder, Jesus, are you the one? Or shall we look for another?  We’d like to hand Jesus the ax John talked about and see him chop down all the trees that don't bear good fruit.    But Jesus lays it down again, and sends us back into the wilderness of our lives, with words of love on our lips, to carry out his mission of compassion and peace and justice.  We pass out food to hungry people, and warm socks and hats and gloves to those need them,  and take cookies and carols and holiday cheer to a lonely shut-in.

            They seem like such little things--  these small acts of love.  They don't satisfy us in the way a little vengeance would--  a God with an ax.  But they are the tasks we have been given to do, while we wait.   And we have promised to try.

            Perhaps it amounts to serving the God who is--   instead of the one we would like God to be.  It was hard for John.  It's hard for us today.  "Are you the one who is to come?  Or shall we look for another?"

            Jesus answered John’s people,  "Go tell John what you hear and see:  the blind receive their sight... and the lame walk.  Lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear.  The dead are raised up...   and the poor have good news preached to them.  And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me."

            It's a radical answer--  almost as radical as the question...   an answer delivered completely in the passive voice, without a single claim for Jesus.  There are no "I" statements here.  The blind are seeing and the lame are walking--   but who's responsible?  Jesus apparently refuses to take credit...  to take charge and singlehandedly rescue the human race from the circumstances of their lives.[1]

            "Go and tell John what you hear and see,"  Jesus says.  We might wish Jesus would work a showy miracle on the spot or give us a simple, pat answer.  "Lift up your eyes and see,"  he says.  "See for yourself.  Make up your own minds."

            What is Jesus saying?  It sounds as if he's saying,  "Go and tell John that everyone who is expected has already arrived.  Go tell him what you hear and see--  that things may not be working out the way he wanted them to...  but that every now and then, in surprising places, amazing things are happening.  People who were blind to the love loose in the world have received the sight to see it. 

            People who were paralyzed with fear-- are limber with hope.  People who were deaf from want of good news-- are hearing the good news.   And best and most miraculous of all, tell John that this is not the work of one lonely Messiah--  but the work of God, carried out by all who believe...  and that there is no end in sight to what God is doing in the world.

             I love the way Barbara Brown Taylor puts it:  “Tell him I am the one, if you must.  But tell him also that yes, he should look for another...  and another...  and another.  Tell him to search every face for the face of God and not to get tripped up on me because what's happening here is bigger than any one of us.  What is coming to pass is as big as the Kingdom of God."[2]

            During Advent, we're reminded that we wait for the second and final coming of Christ.  It’s a paradox:  Christ has come.  Christ is here.  Christ is yet to come.  But in the meantime, we're given the sight to see glimpses of God's Kingdom breaking in.  A very different kind of kingdom, a reign that comes, not by force, but by the birth of a child who came to life in a humble little stable.  The Kingdom of God was present in that common, yet extraordinary birth, as God was born as a helpless baby who came to live among us, full of grace and truth.  The mystery we celebrate at Christmas is the mystery of God-with-us...  Emmanuel.  

           

            When Jesus sent word back to John—“the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them”—he wasn’t just cataloguing his previous day’s to-do list.  Nor was he simply quoting Isaiah.[3] 

            Most importantly, Jesus was encouraging John to cultivate what Ted Wardlaw called  “eschatological eyesight”  to see past what is yet unfinished in our world in order to catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God drawing near.[4]

            Wardlaw writes how, near the end of the twentieth century, some people in the Presbyterian denomination pulled out their calculators and assessed things from a certain angle and then went public with a startling prediction.  Influenced by all the literature about the decline of the mainline church, they predicted that if present trends continued, Presbyterians would become virtually non-existent sometime in the twenty-first century. 

            They put this prediction in what they thought was a particularly clever way.  They said that, if present trends continued, Presbyterians would become “the Amish of the twenty-first century.”  It was a way of saying that, for all practical purposes, Presbyterians would be marginalized and irrelevant, as if we were horse-and-buggy people—totally out of date and rendered invisible by our irrelevance in a world that had totally eclipsed us. 

            Wardlaw remembers that prediction was made in print and was repeated at any number of church meetings.  Whenever that prediction was voiced—“the Amish of the twenty-first century”—people laughed at how cleverly the thought was put.

            Then, in the fall of 2006, we watched as an Amish community in Pennsylvania grieved over and buried a group of their own schoolchildren who had been slaughtered by a rage-filled man with a gun that he finally turned on himself.  In the midst of their grieving, this Amish community paused to send a delegation to reach out in forgiveness and compassion to the widow and family of the one who had slaughtered their children, and even to provide financial support for them.  The world watched in disbelief as they summoned a strength that was impossible, humanly speaking…and then dealt with the sin and tragedy that had penetrated their world by beholding it all with the right kind of eyesight. 

            We watched as they returned love for evil…as they reached out in healing and redemption.  We watched in complete awe as they directed our gaze, if we had the eyesight ourselves to see it, toward a light shining in the darkness--  a light that the darkness could not overcome.

            What a witness!   In a world that can be dark and threatening and incomplete and full of terror, what a difference it can make if we can have the right kind of eyesight, as we move further into God’s future.  May we have eyes to see the long view.  May our eyes be opened to  see God’s activity in what happening.

            In the first verse of the hymn we’ll sing later, we sing with Mary, “Could the world be about to turn?”  By the second and third verses, the we sing “the world is about to turn.”  And in the fourth, we affirm that God is turning the world around.”[5]

            On this Third Sunday of Advent, the rose-colored candle reminds us that God invites us into joy.  God offers us hope, trusting that the day is coming when that hope will become reality.

            In the meantime, every time we reach out with love...  care...  and compassion--  the Kingdom of God grows a little larger...  and is that much closer to being fulfilled. 

            So-- in the meantime, let us wait patiently.  For the coming of the Lord is near, and the world is about to turn.

          

My heart shall sing of the day you bring.

Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,

And the world is about to turn.

 http://youtu.be/trhxP6VAOuc

           

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 15, 2013

             

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[1] I continue to be grateful to Barbara Brown Taylor all these years later for some insights on this passage, in “Are You the One?” in Mixed Blessings (Susan Hunter Publishing, 1986), p. 57.

[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, ibid.

[3] Isaiah 35:5

[4] Theodore J. Wardlaw, Journal for Preachers, Vol XXXI, Number 1, Advent 2007, (Decatur, Ga: Journal for Preachers, 2007) p. 6

[5] “My Soul Cries Out with a Joyful Shout” / “Canticle of the Turning.”  Text: Rory Cooney, 1990.  Music:  Irish melody.  Text and music from 1990 GIA Publications, Inc.  This is in the new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God (2013).