Fellowship Reformed Church of Holland

February 11, 2018
2 Peter 1:12-2:3
Rev. Stan Mast

One of my favorite parts of being a grandpa is telling stories to my grandchildren. They are all getting too big for this now, but I have fond memories of sitting on the couch with grandkids tucked under each arm, snuggled into me, as I tell them stories about my life or their lives or make up silly stories or read them stories like The Pokey Little Puppy or Good Night Gorilla or Green Eggs and Ham. It doesn’t get any better than that.

That’s what Peter is doing in our text with his spiritual grandchildren. He’s getting old, nearing death, about to fold up his tent, as he puts it. And as old men will do, he looks back at the beginning of Christianity and ahead to a day when it will be in much trouble. So, he gathers his loved ones around him to remind them of the truth of the Christian faith. And he does that by telling them a story. You noticed, I’m sure that our reading begins and ends with that word “story.”

The story Peter tells is not about himself or about his children. He doesn’t tell them silly stories or stories every child knows. No, he tells the story of Jesus and his love. Peter is afraid that the story will be forgotten or distorted or misapplied, so he’s going to tell it one more time. He admits that he has told it many times before; old men tend to repeat their favorite stories. But it’s is absolutely important that we remember this story because, as he says in verse 3, in knowing it you have everything you need for life and godliness. This story can change your life. It is the most important story ever told.

That’s quite a claim, given how many stories there are in the world. Stories are so important to human existence, because we can’t make sense of our lives without them. Shakespeare once wrote that “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Sometimes it feels like that, but we can’t live with a life that means nothing, so we tell stories to connect the dots and fill in the gaps. We see a man standing on the corner with a sign asking for money, and we tell ourselves a story about that man. He is a drug addict who is trying feed his habit; or he is a lazy person who doesn’t want to work; or he is a veteran who is suffering from PTSD; or he is a good family man going through a hard time. We always tell ourselves stories to explain events.

And we tell ourselves stories of our own lives. Each of us has his own life story, and it governs how we think about ourselves, how we act, how we relate to others. I’m a little Dutch boy born in South Dakota, raised in Denver, graduated from Denver Christian and Calvin College where I met the love of my life who gave me two fine sons and I became a minister, etc. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

In addition to our own little stories, we have these grand cultural stories, meta narratives that shape our whole society and give us a group identity. There’s the American story, or the Canadian story, or the story of our immigrant forebears. All of these stories are important, and many of them are helpful and good and even true.

But there are also stories that are insidious. They have the ring of truth in them and they seem helpful, but they are deeply false and ultimately harmful. Peter in 2:3 talks about stories that have been made up to exploit people. The Greek there is plastois logois, plastic stories, stories that are manufactured, fabricated, molded to reshape reality, and thus finally false. These plastic stories exploit people and take away their money or their dignity or their freedom or their lives.

A recent issue of the Wall Street Journal reminded me of one such story that dominated the 20th Century. The Journal had a major piece on the Hundredth Anniversary of the Communist Revolution in Russia. “Communism entered history as a ferocious yet idealistic condemnation of capitalism, promising a better world. Its adherents blamed capitalism for the miserable conditions that afflicted peasants and workers alike and for the prevalence of indentured and child labor. Communists saw the slaughter of WWI as the direct result of the rapacious competition among the great powers for overseas markets.”

So, the communists told a new story about class strife and economic equality and a workers’ paradise. But, writes the Journal, “a century of communism in power has made clear the human cost of a political program bent on overthrowing capitalism. The effort to eliminate markets and private property has brought about the death of 65 million people and has left country after country in economic ruin.”

There are other plastic stories out there. There is the sports story, not the story about how much fun and healthy sports can be, but the story that sports are the be all and end all of life, the story believed by young athletes who give their lives to sports success. And there’s the consumerist story, which claims that getting and spending and having is the meaning of life. And there are the plastic stories of the great world religions. And the anti-religious story of postmodern relativism, which tells us that there is no meaning to life, that we are all little specks of dust floating in an accidental universe, so we have to make our own meaning.

That’s the kind of thing Peter was talking about when he coined the term, “plastic stories.” All of them are partially true, alluring in their promise of happiness, and finally destructive of human life. And here’s why. In 2:1 Peter says that they are destructive because they deny the sovereign Lord who bought us. Many personal stories and all of these great cultural stories deny the centrality of Jesus, the Sovereign Lord of the Universe who bought us by his blood so that we belong to him body and soul, in life and in death.

That’s why old grandpa Peter is so determined to tell the story of Jesus. Rather than being a plastic story fabricated to reshape reality, it is the historic story that is rooted in reality. It is a story that is filled with integrity, true through and through. Here Peter focuses on one shining moment in that story, the event we know as the Transfiguration of Jesus. After walking with Jesus for almost three years, getting a full view of his genuine humanity and occasionally glimpsing his glory, Peter, James and John go up on a mountain with Jesus for a stunning Epiphany.

Imagine the scene. Jesus leads the disciples up this mountain, single file trudging up the steep. When they arrive, they are so tired that they begin to drift off to sleep. But they are roused by a spectacle that was burned into their memory. Something happened to Jesus; the Gospels used the word “transfigured” to describe it. The very human Jesus whom they knew so well was, well, changed in a spectacular way. His face shines like the sun. His clothes gleam with a blinding light like a bolt of lightning. Moses and Elijah, the classic representatives of God’s entire Old Testament revelation, are talking with Jesus. For one bright and shining moment Jesus humanity was overwhelmed by his divinity and his disciples see his divine glory.

It was, says Peter, a majestic sight. And, most important, God told a very short story that explained what they were looking at. As Peter puts it, the Majestic Glory spoke, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” The three disciples were so overcome by that thunderous message that they fell to the ground. With typically impetuous zeal, Peter gushed that they should build shelters there to memorialize the experience, to put lightning in a bottle, to capture that moment of overwhelming glory. But, no, there would be no shrines, only the story.

That story summarizes the story of Jesus and his love. It gave his disciples a glimpse of the glory hidden in his humility. It proved his divinity in humanity. It anticipated his Second Coming when the whole world will bow before the glory of the Sovereign Lord. Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah about his coming death in Jerusalem. And Mark adds that as they were coming back down from that sacred mountain, Jesus told them not to tell the story until after his resurrection. It’s all there, his humanity and divinity, his death and resurrection, his ascension and return-- the whole blessed story that gives us everything we need for life and godliness.

That’s quite a story, isn’t it? Almost too good to be true. Maybe fabricated, a plastic story, a cleverly invented story. That’s how early critics of Christianity reacted to it, and incredibly that’s how some of today’s liberal Christians read it. But Peter insists that this is simply what happened. We saw it, he says. We three, we were there, and we saw it with our own 6 eyes. And we heard that voice. How could we ever forget it? It will cost me my life, but I will tell that old, old story as long as I have breath. This is not a cleverly invented, plastic story designed to exploit people for our benefit. This is what actually happened, and it can change your life.

You can be sure of that, says Peter in verse 19, because in this story of Jesus “we have the word of the prophets made more certain.” What does that mean? Well, consider that there are about 60 major prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament. Several years ago, a mathematician calculated the chance of even 8 of those prophecies coming true in one person; it was 1 in 10 to the 17th power, that’s one with 17 zeroes behind it, 1 in 100 trillion. Imagine that we take 100 trillion silver dollars and scatter them over the face of Texas. Texas would be covered 2 feet deep. Now take one dollar, mark it, and drop it somewhere deep in the heart of Texas. Your chances of finding that dollar would be 1 in 100 trillion, the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing just 8 prophecies and having them all come true in one man, if they wrote in their own wisdom. But they didn’t; they wrote inspired by the Holy Spirit.

That man, fulfilling all 60 prophecies, made the words of the prophets more certain. Because of this story, witnessed by Peter and his friends, and that back story, told ahead of time and fulfilled in one Man, we can be sure that we have seen the Light. So, says Peter in verse 19, “you will do well to pay attention to that light, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

We live in a dark place, don’t we? And there are so many stories designed to light a candle in the darkness, to give direction and purpose and meaning to our lives. But that’s the point. Those plastic stories are designed, carefully, cleverly fabricated to reshape reality. Here is the one story that is rooted in Ultimate Reality, the story of God become human, glory hidden in a body, until that day on the mountain when there was this Epiphany and we saw the Light of the world.

So, what’s your story? What is the dominant story of your life, the story that gives your life meaning and shape, that motivates you and sustains you, that gives your direction and hope, that saves you. If it’s not this story, let me tell you how Jesus’ story changed my story, and can change yours. I am not just a bit of cosmic dust who just happened to be born to Dutch American parents; I am a born-again child of the Eternal Father who sent his only begotten Son to become a piece of cosmic dust for me and my salvation. I am not only a miserable sinner deserving of God punishment; I am a forgiven saint because Jesus took my punishment in his suffering and death. I am not merely a citizen of a great flawed country divided by partisan strife; I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God that unites all people under one Head, Jesus Christ. I am not a fearful victim of natural and human forces that can ruin my life; I am the victorious servant of the Sovereign Lord who bought me with his blood and protects me by his power. I am not a mere mortal who will get sick and die and cease to exist; I am an heir to the promises of eternal life, the resurrection of the dead, and a restored world. And until that time, I am not lost in space, wandering with no sense of direction and purpose; I am a disciple of the great Teacher who revealed the truth to Moses and Elijah and Peter and me. In short, my story is not “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” as Thomas Hobbes said. It is a story filled with glory, not because of anything I have done, but because of the work of Jesus, whose glory was revealed on that mountain, and on the cross, and in the empty tomb, and will one day be seen by the whole world.

I’m an old preacher like Peter, but I’m sticking with the song I learned as a kid. “I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story because I know ‘tis true; it satisfies my longing as nothing else can do. I love to tell the story; ‘twill be my theme in glory to tell the old old story of Jesus and his love.”

It will be my theme in glory and it is my theme here in the darkness. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

February 4, 2018
John 4:1-42
Nate Schipper

January 28, 2018
John 3:1-21
Lindsay Small

When I was in 8th grade, our art class got in trouble.
I don’t remember why. I just remember that our art teacher, Mrs. Paganelli, was really mad. I mean, really mad.
And so she made us write the word “art” the entire class period. It wasn’t for a purpose. We didn’t collage it or mod podge it on canvas when we were done. We just had to write ‘Art’ for 50 minutes straight. So that’s what we did…of course, a few of my classmates thought it was hilarious to add an ‘f’ to the beginning of the word…
Now up to that point, I hadn’t thought that “art” was that strange of a word.
But after writing it about 40 times, I started to think it was one of the silliest looking words in the world.
When something is familiar to us…it doesn’t often get noticed.
But when we take a concentrated look…a repetitive look…we notice things we had not noticed before.
Our text for today includes quite arguably the most familiar Bible verse in history.
It’s been tattooed on arms, held up at all manner of sporting events, posted on billboards, adorns on jewelry…it has become a part of our vocabulary.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life.”
And no wonder, Martin Luther called it the gospel in a nutshell…the gospel in 24 to 27 words (depending on your translation).
I would venture to guess that we’ve all heard this verse before.
Many of us memorized it in Sunday School.
Many of us know it by poster board.
And perhaps we know it so well that we haven’t given it a second, or third thought in a long time…
So we’re just going to write John 3:16 over and over again for the next 50 minutes…
Of course…the problem with pulling any one verse out of any one passage is that you miss what is happening around it…and this verse is no exception. Its so unfortunate that they don’t make poster board big enough to hold the entire passage…

It begins with a late night visit…

“Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness…wanting the disguise of night so he wouldn’t have to hear about it from his Pharisee friends. But I also believe that he wants Jesus to himself…without the crowds that had already begun following him around…
He clearly has questions weighing on his mind…and it seems as though they are not just his own, after all, he says, “We know that you are a teacher…”
So obviously a prior conversation with his Pharisee posse has occurred…they have come to the conclusion that Jesus is a teacher sent from God. He goes on to call Jesus “Rabbi.”
He shows respect from the very beginning…and his questions are curious…not crafty or interrogating.
What proceeds from there is a Q and A session that must have lasted well into the night.
We get the highlights…but clearly this is a conversation that lasts for quite a long time.
But why go to Jesus in the first place? Nicodemus seemingly gained no earthy
good by seeking out Jesus…
He was a trained rabbi, a Pharisee…respected and revered. He had learned the right answer to all of life’s questions from an early age…verses from Torah that he had to repeat over and over and over again…for a lot longer than 50 minutes…
But something must have been nagging at him…
And his curiosity could not contain him. And so he goes to Jesus…
What was Nicodemus looking for?
Despite his knowledge, his status, his position…there was something one of his repeated answers had not covered…
…and so question after question he tries to get at what he’s missing.
Jesus’ answers are perplexing and confusing…even for us today. Adults being born all over again, snakes being lifted up…this was not the linear teaching Nicodemus was used to…
And then Jesus speaks these words, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him, shall not perish but have eternal life.”
It is amazing to think of the first time these words were spoken…given that they’ve been repeated over and over in nearly every language since then.
If the Gospel can be summed up in one verse, than I think the one verse can be summed up in three words:
God so loved.
That’s what its all about.
That is the gospel.
That is what Nicodemus was looking for: A GOD WHO LOVES.
God so loved that he pours forth sacrifice, grace, and forgiveness.
God so loved that it is limitless…no borders, boundaries, or distinctions.
God so loved THE WORLD…that he gave his only son.
God so loved…and everything pours forth from there.
A message worth repeating over and over again…
We don’t know Nick’s immediate response…John doesn’t give us that information. But he doesn’t record another question after these verses.
Perhaps for the time being, his questions had been answered.
In no way how he thought they would be…
I wonder if the idea of a loving God had been missing from his education.
I wonder if the emphasis had been on characteristics of God that were more legalistic and judgmental.
And so to hear of a loving God was quite remarkable.
And maybe its not just remarkable for Nicodemus…but for you and me as well…
We know God is loving. But until we’ve written it on our hearts…over and over again…I wonder if we’ve really let it sink in.
We might feel as though God’s love is reserved for the really good people we know…or for us when we’re having a good day…or maybe we feel like God used to love us…but now we’ve fallen out of God’s love.
One of the most difficult directions to imagine God’s love pointing…is at us.
But if John tells us anything…it’s that God loves…from an Upper Class Pharisee to the Samaritan Woman we’ll consider next week…and everywhere in between.
We’re in that in between, aren’t we? Somewhere between a noble religious type and a scandalous outcast.
And so when Jesus says, “God so loves THE WORLD…” He means God loves all of it.
I was helping out in a preaching class at Western Seminary this past week, and the students were introducing themselves to me by saying their name and the preaching culture they grew up in. One of the student said: “All of the preacher’s points started with the same letter…and there was a lot about damnation.”
That was the message that had repeated over and over at his church.
We are preaching to our children…whether you’re standing where I am, teaching Sunday School, serving our kids with special needs, or handing them a cup of water after the service.
And I long for our kids…old and young…to go out into the world knowing down to their very core that GOD LOVES THEM.
God so loved.
God so loved.
God so loved.
And everything else follows…
What are we preaching? What message are we repeating?
And so our response to God is to respond in kind. To love God with all our heart, mind, and strength. And to love our neighbors as ourselves.
God tells us over and over again in scripture that he loves us…and therefore we are to love one another.
God so loved…and that’s our call as well.
To love our children, our parents, our siblings…our friends…and even those for whom it is hard to love.
A few nights ago I was having a conversation with Kyle about some people in my life who have been hurtful over the past few weeks…totally removed from Fellowship by the way. And I must confess to you I was speaking about a few of these individuals in a less than charitable way…
Kyle said, I’m going to write them and tell them we love them and are thinking of them…
My response, “Well make sure you use the singular pronoun. I want nothing to do with that…Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go work on my sermon about God’s love.”
Just terrible of me…
Kyle said gently…”Lindsay, you taught me how to love. You taught me to say it often. Don’t forget your love.”
Ugh…I hate it when he’s right.
I’m sure you haven’t spoken ill of anyone this week. Just me. But on the off chance you did…can we remember together that we are to love?
Because God so loved.
The invitation for us is to do the same…
There are tremendous hurts that we hold…even in this room. There are questions that we’d like to ask Jesus on dark night… about why bad things happen…about why we hurt…
And many of these questions will go unanswered this side of heaven.
But I do know that God so loved to the world…that he gave us his son…
…and so entering into a relationship with Christ is one that leads to life, and not
death.
That is the answer to so many of our questions.
Loving God and Loving the World is a life’s work.
But we do it because it was Christ’s life work…and its good and hard work.
We don’t hear of Nicodemus after this conversation for many more chapters…
But he appears in John once again in chapter 19…after Jesus had been crucified…
John tells us that he brought, “a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. 40 They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. 42 And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.”
Nicodemus came to Jesus again, this time surrounded by the darkness of death.
Somewhere in the darkness of that night with Jesus, Nicodemus was transformed. He had opened himself up to a loving God, even when that love wasn’t what he was expecting, even when that love didn’t make any sense to him. And here he was…in an incredibly loving and compassionate act…caring for Jesus’ body…
I wonder if the words Jesus had spoke to him that night were ringing in his ears…
“For God so loved the world…that he gave his only son…and so I will believe in him, and have eternal life.”
I wonder if this became a phrase the Nicodemus repeated over and over again…
It certainly is a message worth repeating.
For God so loved the world…
For God so loved you…
For God so loved me…
…that he gave his only son.
Throughout life’s sunny days dark nights,…may this truth be one that repeats over and over again.
And may we never lose its wonder and beauty…
Amen

January 21, 2018
John 2:13-25
David Bast

December 10, 2017
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Jordan Clegg

I love science fiction. It is easily my favorite genre of both literature and film. Some of my best and oldest friendships are rooted in a mutual love of Star Wars and other nerdy things like that. I believe that the best science fiction has a way of being prophetic showing us possible futures or revealing hidden real-world truths, fears, or injustices. More often than not, the futures look bleak and the revelations are less than flattering for humanity.

One of the most popular science fiction franchises ever and one that gives us a rare, optimistic view of the future is Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek. What started out as a 1960’s television series has become a legitimate subculture phenomenon with conventions, spinoffs, movies, toys, games, and even a Star Trek themed Christian church where priests, musicians, and congregants show up to worship in their Sunday best: their official Starfleet uniforms.

In 2009 the Star Trek movie franchise was rebooted with a new cast and a new timeline. In the new series we are reintroduced to Captain James T. Kirk the crew of the Starship Enterprise. Among Kirk’s closest friends is the ship’s medical officer. Dr. Leonard McCoy.

[Some of you may see where I’m going with this now. What was Captain Kirk’s nickname for McCoy?] Bones.

In the film we find out how McCoy gets the name “Bones”. When we first meet Dr. McCoy he’s making a huge scene as he boards a shuttle to the Enterprise. True to his grumpy, pessimistic persona, McCoy is listing in graphic detail the many ways one might meet their end while traveling through space. As he reluctantly straps in next to Kirk we get a clear picture of McCoy as a man who knows the pain, loss, and fear of exile.

“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” says McCoy, “the ex-wife took the whole ____ planet in the divorce. All I’ve got left is my bones.”

Have you ever felt like bones?

Have you ever felt like all that is life-giving, joyful, and meaningful has been stripped away?

Have you ever felt like bones?

Have you ever felt like dry bones…like the loss, the pain, the doubt, and confusion have set in?

Has it ever been hard to remember the “good times,” if those times ever really existed?

Have you ever felt like just…bones?

Maybe it’s a destructive habit or addiction that you just can’t seem to kick.

You’ve done all the things you’re supposed to do…

You’ve sought help.
You’ve paid for therapy.
You’ve gone to the meetings.
You’ve tried accountability.

But you just can’t seem to shake the fixation that dominates your life at so great a cost.

The desire for one more fix,
one more drink,
one more bet,
one more click,
one more purchase,
or one more glance at the smartphone, at Facebook , or the news

has stripped away all the truly good things that should be at the center of your life. It feels like this behavior defines you. It is starting to feel that freedom is out of reach…or maybe hope was lost a long time ago… all that’s left is your bones.

Have you ever felt like bones?

Have you ever felt like dry bones?

Maybe it’s a long season of doubt. Maybe it feels like it is God is distant, uncaring, unfair, or just plain mean. What do you do with these feelings, especially if you’ve grown up in the church (like me)? It is scary to be in a season of like this. If this gospel is not true then my life has been a waste. If this gospel isn’t true then I’m not sure I even know who I am anymore. For some this doubt may be fleeting, but for others it has been a painful nagging for months or years…like a bone out of place in your foot as you stumble through life.

          Have you ever felt like bones?

          Have you ever felt like dry bones?

Maybe it’s illness; chronic disease that strips away all but symptom management. I’ve experienced this in my own life. In 2012 I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. MS is an autoimmune disease when cells that are supposed to fight infection and illness, attack the myelin sheathe, the outer coating of nerves in the brain and spine. When this happens, lesions form causing a sort of short circuit in the nervous system.

The symptoms vary slightly from person to person, but most commonly they include relapsing periods of numbness, weakness, and muscle spasms that escalate over a period of a week or so followed by a time of plateau and tapering recovery. For me, it started as a strange loss of hot/cold sensations in my feet and legs. After a time I experienced an intense headache at the base of my skull. Following that there was tingling and numbness that started in my left hand and worked its way up my arm. Once the weakness set in and the numbness had moved to my chest and abdomen I started to suspect that something was wrong.

An MRI scan of my brain and neck showed three lesions: one on each side of my brain and on in the upper part of my spine. But the worst had not yet come. Over the next week or so after my diagnosis symptoms had spread across my chest and into my other arm and hand. Eventually my dominant arm was so weak I couldn’t do things like hold a fork, turn a doorknob, or type on a keyboard and I certainly couldn’t play a guitar. Eventually I had trouble walking. Muscle spasms wouldn’t let me sleep for more than two hours at a time and fatigue began to set in like a fog hanging over every thought.

As bad as all that might sound, my symptoms are actually considered mild compared to many others who struggle with the same disease. I’m lucky to be living in a time when MS no longer guarantees that you’ll be wheelchair bound in a matter of years. I’m happy to say that due to good doctors and good medicine that I have been relapse free for going on 4 years now. But anyone who has experienced this kind of life-altering diagnosis be it MS or something far more serious and life threatening, will tell you that it feels like your whole life falls apart, and everything become centered on managing new circumstances. Life as you know it has been stripped away. All that’s left is your bones.

Have you ever felt like bones?

Have you ever felt like dry bones?

Israel knew what this was like…to feel like bones. They were a people in exile; refugees in a foreign land. Cut off from their home. Cut off from Jerusalem, and the temple, which for them pointed to the presence of God among them. To make things worse, news has reached Babylon that the temple and Jerusalem have been destroyed. Not only are they separated from their home against their will, Israel now finds out that there is no longer a home to return to. Even more disturbing, there may not be a God to return to either. It’s not just a loss of material; it’s a loss of dignity, identity, and hope. Babylon had taken everything. All they’ve got left is their bones…and even those are all dried up.

Have you ever felt like bones?

Have you ever felt like dry bones?

Enter Ezekiel, the sci-fi prophet with his visions of alien-like cherubim with wings and multiple animal-like faces, a strange spaceship-like vehicle with wheels within wheels that God’s glory flies around in, and this vision we heard and saw today of a valley full of bones coming back to life that can only be described as a scene from a zombie movie.

Ezekiel is prophesying at the same time as Jeremiah who we heard from a few weeks ago, but unlike Jeremiah who was initially left behind, Ezekiel is among the first wave of exiles to Babylon. Ezekiel knows what is like to feel like bones. He knows the pain and loss of exile intimately. He also knows that this exile is an exile of Israel’s own making.

Ezekiel has warned Israel that Jerusalem was going down. He warned them the temple was going down too. And it was because of Israel’s disobedience; primarily their idol worship. Ezekiel’s message for the first half of his book is, “this is your own doing!” It is not a very comforting message. It is easy to understand why Israel would assume that God had cut them off; that God no longer wanted to have anything to do with them. It had to have been a hopeless feeling. They had ruined everything. All they’ve got left is their bones…and even those are all dried up.

Have you ever felt like bones?

Have you ever felt like dry bones?

As important as it is to see Ezekiel’s vision through the lenses of our personal lives, Ezekiel is speaking to an entire community of people.

“These bones are the whole house of Israel,” God says.

This begs the question: What are the dry bone valleys we’ve created as a church, as a city, as a country? What causing the body count to rise, the bones to pile up and dry out?

Could it be political tribalism; sounding off in our echo chambers that never challenge our perceptions of the world and declare that those who see differently are either ignorant or ill-intentioned?

Could it be our treatment of the refugee and the immigrant?

Could it be our complicity in systems that keep the poor stuck in poverty and the hungry in need of food?

Could it be our smartphones or tablets with constant stream of status updates, streaming television, and news.

Could it be our refusal to acknowledge our privilege and our reluctance to use it for good of those with less?

Could it be our unwillingness to look weak, to give up power?

Are these communal sins; these mass graves of our own making; cutting us off from God and one another.

          Are we beginning to look like bones?

          Are we beginning to look like dry bones?

Ezekiel’s message at the beginning of his career is one of judgment, but once Israel receives the devastating news that the temple is destroyed his message turns to one of hope. In earlier chapters Ezekiel writes that he has seen the glory of God leave the temple and Jerusalem. This might sound distressing at first. After all, remember, the temple was the symbol of God’s presence with Israel. The departure of God’s glory from the holy place may have felt like God abandoning them. But Ezekiel’s vision of God mounting a chariot led by angels may not be a vision of abandonment, but that of pursuit. Ezekiel’s earliest vision of God on the move is before Jerusalem is sieged and the temple destroyed. God leaves God’s dwelling place, mounts God’s chariot, and goes…to…Babylon.

This exile may be an exile of Israel’s own making.
God may not be willing to keep it from happening,
but God will remain faithful in the midst of their trauma.
God will go with them into exile
and God will lead them back.

In this season of Advent, we acknowledge that we are a people waiting for God to come and save us,

To ransom us from our captivity and from our lonely exiles, our valleys of dry bones.

We are waiting for Jesus Christ who was born just like we were born, lived as we live, died like we die, but was raised to life again so that we might live and creation be restored.

O dry bones…hear the Word of the Lord:

          I will put on muscles and tendons.
          I will put on flesh and cover myself with skin.
          I will breathe the air you breathe…and you shall live.
          I will cause breath to enter you
          I will lay muscles and tendons on you
          I will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin…and you shall live.
          I will heal the divisions among you,
          I will bring justice to all people,
          I will break your destructive habits and addictions,
          I will stay with you even in your doubt,
          I will heal you of your illnesses,
          I will restore your myelin sheath,
          I will heal your loneliness, your heartbreak, your despair
          I will make a path home for you…and you shall live.

The promise of this text is not that we will never face exile, or pain, or loss, or injustice. God’s promise to us is that he will enter the exiles and the dry bone valleys of our lives in order to restore that which has been long dead and lead us into new life.

This restoration is not a nostalgic return to the way things once were, it is a transformative sort of restoration. We know that Israel did eventually return from exile, but they were never the same again, and that return home did not last. There were more exiles to come…some were self-made and some were not. God’s promises held true for Israel and they hold true for us in Jesus Christ.

O dry bones, as you wait to be restored, hear the Word of the Lord:

9 … you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,[c] in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

10 Once you were not a people,
 but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
 but now you have received mercy.
(1 Peter 2:9-10)

Once you were dry bones, now you are being restored and transformed.

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

December 3, 2017
Daniel 3:1, 8-30
Tanner Smith

In 1940, in the early part of World War II, the German forces were inflicting heavy casualties on the Allied Forces of Britain and France. As the powerful Nazi troops swept across Europe, the 350,000 soldiers of the Allied Army were forced to retreat.

BUT as they were making their escape, they got trapped on a beach across from the English Channel at Dunkirk, France. The sea on one side, the invading Nazi army on the other.

The Nazi’s had the Allied Army completely surrounded. The Nazi Air Force actually dropped leaflets on the British Forces telling them to surrender --- there was no hope of escape.

All of England knew of the situation that their soldiers were in … and were waiting on the news of the annihilation of the 350,000 brave men.

Late one night…May 25th, a simple three-word message was transmitted across the airwaves of England from the commander of the British Army. The message read: “But … If … Not.”

And then something amazing happened.

In a matter of hours, without any formal organization, thousands of English citizens got in their private boats and began heading across the English Channel towards their trapped soldiers at Dunkirk.

Small fishing boats, trawlers, large private boats, even an Olympic racing yacht. At the risk of their own lives from the dangerous waters and certain enemy fire, they raced to the beaches of Dunkirk and began evacuating their sons, brothers, fathers, and friends.

By the next day, all the troops had been rescued in what historians now call the “Miracle of Dunkirk.”

But … if … not …

What did these three words mean, and how did the Brits all know to act so collectively and decisively.

The answer, of course, is in the 3rd chapter of Daniel.

The story of three men, about to be thrown into a fiery furnace because they refuse to worship a false god.

They trust that God will save them …

and they tell the king Nebuchadnezzar as much …

and then they say these words …

from the King James version … the version the Brits would have been familiar with in 1940:

“But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” – Daniel 3:18, KJV

Death appeared imminent …

they trusted God for rescue …

But if not …

they still wouldn’t bend their knees,

they still wouldn’t surrender.

The Brits knew about BUT IF NOT … and it moved them to action.

BACKDROP – BABYLONIAN EXILE

The story of the fiery furnace is set during the time of the Babylonian Exile.

It’s an event recorded in 2 Kings 25, and written about in many of the Psalms, the book of Lamentations, and is the backdrop to many of the prophets’ writings.

The Israelites had rebelled against the Babylonians.

Babylon was the major superpower of the day.

And so the Babylonians, and their King Nebuchadnezzar, paid retribution on the Israelites for their rebellion.

First, they took the King, the Priests, the Prophets, the Army, and all the wisest leaders of Israel to Babylon.

And then, the Babylonians decimated the city of Jerusalem.

They destroyed the temple.

The crushed the synagogues.

And they left the people there to starve to death.

The OT book of Lamentations is about the people who were left in Jerusalem during that time.

CHAPTER 1

So with that history in mind, the only way to understand Daniel 3 is by explaining what happens in Daniel 1 and 2.

In Daniel CHAPTER 1: We learn that the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar ordered his chief of the court officials to bring some Israelites from the royal family to him …

He wanted to put them through three years of intense training where they would learn the language, the literature, the history, and the culture of the Babylonians. Basically, three years of brainwashing into the Babylonian way of life.

Among those chosen were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah …

And, as part of the brainwashing, the Babylonians gave them new names.

Daniel becomes Belteshazzar.

Hananiah became Shadrach.

Mishael, became Meshach.

And Azariah became Abednego.

But unlike the other Jewish men who were chosen, these men had a strong faith in God … and they refused certain aspects of the king’s court that went against their convictions.

Changing their names didn’t change their character.

CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2 begins with King Nebuchadnezzar consulting his magicians, and astrologers, and smartest guys in the empire about a dream he wanted to have interpreted. None of them could do it.

Which made Nebuchadnezzar really angry. So angry that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon.

Well, Daniel prayed, asking God to spare his life and give him an interpretation of the dream.

And, God answered his prayer.

Now, the King is so captivated by Daniel’s ability that he places Daniel as a ruler of the entire province of Babylon and places him in charge of all the wise men….

and appoints Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon.

So … by the end of the second chapter…Daniel and his three friends are …

men of great faith.

men of great passion.

And now men of great position.

They’ve found favor not just with God …

but also with their enemies!

And that brings us to chapter 3 – the fiery furnace …

 DANIEL 3:1, 8-30

1 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, ninety feet high and nine feet wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

8 At this time some astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews.

9 They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! 10 You have issued a decree, O king, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music must fall down and worship the image of gold, 11 and that whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into a blazing furnace. 12 But there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—who pay no attention to you, O king. They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up.”

13 Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, 14 and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? 15 Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if he does not, …or in the King James Version: “But if NOT” … we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual 20 and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. 21 So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. 22 The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 23 and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.

24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

They replied, “Certainly, O king.”

25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

26 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”

So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, 27 and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

28 Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. 29 Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way.”

30 Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

BUT IF NOT…

But if not…

Three words … spoken in the midst of tragedy …

Three words … spoken with great faith….

Three words … spoken as an act of courage…

Three words … spoken as an act of submission,

not to the temporary pressure of the moment, but to the eternal presence of God.

Three words … spoken in the flames of a furnace.

BUT IF NOT … those three words still have something to teach us today about living in the flames.

We all encounter flames of some kind at some point …

loneliness.

singleness.

childlessness.

marriage troubles.

family conflicts.

rebellious children.

Abuse.

A diagnosis.

Depression.

Anxiety.

Poverty.

Sickness.

Grief.

Doubt.

Flames.

THE QUESTION IS: How do we live in the midst of the flames? When we feel as though we’ve been carried off to a foreign land,

or asked to do something that goes against our convictions,

When we face dire circumstances and we don’t see a way out … how do we live?

But if not …

These three words, and what they represent become a powerful way to live in the midst of struggle and suffering.

THERE ARE THINGS BEYOND OUR CONTROL

First, BUT IF NOT reminds us that there will always be things beyond our control …

but the things beyond our control don’t have to control us.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego

had no control over the flames of the fire,

no control over the response of the king,

no control of the land they were living in …

They weren’t in control of their circumstances,

But notice:

Their circumstances weren’t in control of them, either.

Sometimes, in the midst of the furnace, all we can say is

“God I trust you … I believe you love me … I believe you will make a way out of this … but if not … I will still not bow down. I will not give myself over to the false gods

of despair,

or hatred,

or bitterness,

or greed,

or convenience,

or fear,

or scarcity,

or entitlement.”

You know, I’ve done a lot of damage to my soul and to the welfare of others because I’ve felt entitled. You probably have, too.

BUT IF NOT refuses to bend a knee to all of these false gods who continually whisper “follow me to happiness, to independence, follow me because you deserve it.”

You see … BUT IF NOT is declaration of trust without conditions.

YOUR TRUE NAME!

Now, the question is, How do you muster the courage,

how do you find the audacity to face the flames of life with that kind of unrestricted, unconditional trust …

like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego avowing “BUT IF NOT …”

Well, You Remember Your true name.

We know this as the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But those are not their real names.

Those are the names given to them by the Babylonians.

• Did you know that Shadrach, is a name that means … “Commander of Aku [the moon god].” But his real name, wasn’t Shadrach, but Hananiah, a name that means: “God has been gracious.”
• And, did you know that Meshach is a name that means “Who is like Aku?” But, his real name wasn’t Meshach, it was Misha’el … which means: “Who is like God [Yahweh]!”
• And did you know that Abednego is a name that means, “Servant of Nebo [god of wisdom].” But his real name is Azariah, which means: “Yahweh has helped.”

It’s a shame that we know them by their false names…the names that the Babylonians gave them.

Because they lived their lives, not by those names,

but by their true names.

Lives of devotion, reliance, and trust in God.

Of course, we have the same choice.

This world will try to give you all kinds of names.

It may be a name that others covet – a name that implies wealth, power, and influence.

Or it may be a name that stinks of a curse – like reject, loser, or failure.

But…those names … are … not … your true … names!

The bible says that in Christ you are a New Creation.

It says that we are Saints.

Predestined for good things.

Chosen before the creation of the world.

Adopted.

… like stars shining in the heavens.

Children of the living God.

That is your true name!

And when you live in the flames of the furnace,

you have to remember your real name.

Because the names that the world gives us just don’t cut it.

Today, your Heavenly Father, your King, invites you to trust …

• To trust that even though you aren’t in control, God still is.
• To trust that your true name is the name that your Heavenly Father has given you, and none other.
• To live a life of trust marked by three little words, “But if not …”

JESUS

You know … it strikes me that on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he prayed a BUT IF NOT prayer … In the garden before he was arrested, you remember? He prayed, “Father, if it’s possible, let this cup pass from me … but if not … but if not … I will trust you anyway.”

Do you want to know what’s on the other side of “But if not …”? What “But if not” leads to?

The Resurrection.

This morning, God invites you to allow the broken bread,

and poured out wine to lead you to trust

To trust that your sins are forgiven in Christ

That the old is gone and the new has come

That death has been defeated

That the flames have already been extinguished

through the broken body and the poured-out blood of the Risen Christ who prayed, “But if not …”

November 26, 2017
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14
Lindsay Small

It was one of those beautiful summer nights…the kind where you could sit outside and enjoy the company of good friends.

We were seated around the table of our favorite pizza place near where we used to live in Sawyer, MI. And somehow the talk around the table turned to home…

It was my husband Kyle who posed the question…and it turned into a conversation I still remember several years out… He simply asked, “Where is your land?” Where is the place that you call home?” That place that calls out to you. That place that you think of as the ultimate happy place.

Over the next hour, those of us around the table recalled the place we call ‘home’…the place where the land is near and dear to us.

Its a simple but profound question. Because so often your land…the place you think of as home…speaks to who you are. It has shaped you and taken up residence in your DNA.

Since that conversation, it is the question that I ask our interns to share as they begin their ministry season with us. It’s such a better mixer question than asking about a favorite color or ice cream flavor. By the time the discussion has ended, we have a clearer understanding of each other. And often, we have a clearer understanding of ourselves.

It is a question that all of us should consider.

Where is your land? Where is home for you?

It will most likely be different for each and every one of us. And for many, your land is not here. It is not in Holland, Michigan. It is the campground you went to every summer. It is the childhood home you grew up in. It is the National Park or lakeshore you visited even just one time, but it made your heart leap out of your chest.

In today’s passage, the people are longing for their land. Longing to go back to a place they felt was home.

Because they were not home. They were far, far from home. And they were longing to go back.

Because after all, there’s no place like home.

The scene from today’s passage opens in a barren wasteland…a land once flowing with milk and honey that has just experienced a cyclone of exile and rebellion.

A series of bad kings and mismanagement has led to large portions of the Judean community swept away…only to find themselves in Babyloz…(work with me here…)

I’ve got a feeling they’re not in Jerusalem anymore.

With home on their minds…they are seeking any path…yellow brick or otherwise…to find their way home.

Along the way, many they meet are quick to tell them how to get home…

Several false prophets have provoked them…filling their minds with stories of the imminent destruction of Babyloz…and the promise that they would soon return home.

But it turns out, these prophets have no heart, no brain…and no courage. Empty words to fill them with empty hope.

Enter Jeremiah, the good prophet of the South…who writes the Exiles a letter of true hope. True courage. True heart.

And yet, his words are not exactly what they were hoping to hear…

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.”

No, no, no…The Good Prophet Jeremiah was supposed to tell us how to get home…how to get back to Kansas, I mean, the Promised Land (its easy to get them mixed up).

Jeremiah has the wrong script…he’s reading the wrong part. Somebody throw a bucket of water on this guy…

Every thought they’ve had since arriving in Babyloz has been about HOME… their land…their promised land.

And this…this was not it.

And so now, now you’re telling us to build houses? Plant gardens? Have children? These are things of years…not the days we were hoping for…

The Judeans wanted to jump on the Yellow Brick Road…run to the Emerald City…click their heels together…and be back home.

We can hardly blame them.

They were strangers in a strange land.

With strange cultures, traditions, even gods.

Their perception of land flowed into their faith as well.

They were not in God’s land. God lived in the promised land…not in Babylon. They were living in another gods land…

For the Israelites…God’s location was in the Temple….and so to be anywhere else meant they were separated from God.

And so they were not only missing the connection they had to the land they had known and loved…but also the God they had known and loved.

In their minds God had borders…limits…He did not travel to Babyloz. They had left him behind.

Like the Wizard behind the curtain, they thought their God had limited power, limited resources, and a limited location.

Once they left their land, they thought they had to leave their God.

—-

And so perhaps…exile had a reason. Perhaps they were sent into exile to see that God had actually gone along with them…

After all, Jeremiah starts his letter with God as the unlikely subject. “All those I carried into exile.”

All this time they had believed it was Nebuchadnezzar’s henchmen who had carried them off…and true enough they had…but God had allowed it to happen.

God had taken his people away from his land.

But it was to teach them that no matter what land they live in…it was God’s land. That all land is the promised land.

Because God’s promises go with us no matter where we go. He has promised us more than what our minds limit us to.

And so for 70 years, they are to settle…and not a resigning yourself to a miserable existence kind of settle…but settle down. Plant things, grow things, from fruit to family…

Make this your land.

God says, I’ll bring you back. But for now, I want you to find me here.

This entire plot line…scene after scene of exile, hardship, and loss of home and land…leads up to the most famous line of the script…

11       For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

12      Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.

13     When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.

Yes, even here in Babyloz…even here you can find me.

I know the plans I have for you…plans to watch over you and care for you. But these plans will not be lived out where you thought they would…

Once again, God reminds us of the futility of trying to write our own scripts, design our own lives, plot our own plots…

That the more we try to control…the more we feel out of of control. And suddenly we find ourselves in exile.

Most of us have lived at one time or another in exile. Whether geographically far from family and friends…alone for the first time…out from under the protective wing of our parents.

Or perhaps more metaphorically…when exile has been a place of loneliness, isolation, or illness.

Its easy to want to return to the known. To find God in the familiar. To look only for the road that will lead us back to home.

Or perhaps it’s easy to think that our exile is an excuse for tepid faith…for lackluster following. When the letter says…seek me with all your heart. Not just at home…but in exile as well.

It is often when we are in wilderness place when we find God in new and powerful ways. And it is often our time in the exiled wilderness that leads us to new growth and learning.

I’ve talked before about our move to Sawyer, Michigan from the suburbs of Minneapolis in 2009. Despite having grown up in Michigan, this part of the Mitten seemed dramatically remote (I didn’t know about the pizza place at the time). It was an area ripe with antique malls but short on friendships and connection.

I had left behind dear friends in Minnesota…and I wanted so desperately to go home.

But in our second year there, Kyle started teaching more regularly at a seminary in Holland, Michigan. And as his responsibilities grew, so did our family time up in Holland. We were given an extra student apartment for those snow days when Kyle couldn’t make it the 70 miles back…and I remember so clearly driving our toddler age children up to Holland…a land flowing with Meijer and Target.

It was our “exile” in Sawyer that led us to Holland…and eventually, to Fellowship Church. We needed to be there…we bought a house, had one more child…we even planted a garden.

And in the midst of all of that, we discovered that God was there with us.

God is in the lonely places. God is in our exiles.

His desire is to bring us out of those places…to restore us…and to lead us home.

But there are times we have to accept exile…when tragedy or unexpected circumstances have left us with no choice.

Our natural tendency is to escape the pain and difficulty as fast as possible.

The good prophet Jeremiah’s message of perseverance and persistence is less popular…but it lasts a whole lot longer.

Because God is not only in the exile of space, he is in the exile of time.

And he will be with you, no matter what road you are on, no matter how long you’re on it.

—-

What does it mean to move forward, when all we want to do is move back? Especially when we know moving forward means NOT moving back?

It means that no matter where we are…we know that God holds the plans of our future.

And that if we seek him…with all our hearts…we will find him. No matter where we are.

Our land…our home…perhaps they are meant to be more a place of memory than permanence.

A place for us to think back on when we need reminders of God’s presence of grace and mercy and comfort.

But our experience of exile is also needed. To remind us that God goes with us…goes before us…and goes beside us.

Allow me to suggest a lunchtime conversation…ask someone… Where is your land?

And then if you feel very brave, ask… Where is your exile?

And where have you seen God in both?

Whether we’re near or far…or somewhere over the rainbow… God is with us.

Our call as Christ followers is to look for him…with all our hearts. And when we do that, God promises that we will find him.

There’s no place like home.

It’s a space where heaven and earth seem a little closer. But perhaps…there’s no place like exile either.

Because in those places of desolation and loneliness…

…maybe heaven and earth come even closer.

November 12, 2017
Micah 6:1-8
Lindsay Small

This past Friday night our family went to opening night of Peter Pan at West Ottawa High School…which is wonderful by the way! It was so cool to see so many Fellowship kids in the production…and people from Fellowship there to cheer them on!

It was wonderful watching our talented students in action…but a close second was watching the looks of pride and love on parent’s faces.

I’ve done a small study over my past decade of being a parent into the strange behavior that can often arise at our children’s performances.

This particular brand of peculiar behavior is groomed over many years…starting with preschool Christmas programs…we vie for the best spots…the crane our necks…we video the whole thing from 45 rows back…my favorite is that we wave “HI!”…look! I see her! I see him!…when the funny thing is, we probably drove them to the event…and see them all the time!

These events…the big games, the performances, graduations, recitals…these are the mountaintop experiences in our lives.

Our lives are marked by these sacred events…as I look back over the photo yearbooks I’ve put together for our family…they are mostly the mountaintops… the vacations, the weddings, the births and birthdays…these are things that make up our stored memory, the things that we dream about for the future.

But there’s also this space in the middle… the mundane…the everyday…the regular. And the mundane vastly outnumbers the mountaintops.

Time marches us through both…at the same pace no matter if we are in our darkest valley or highest mountain.

On our first trip to Paris…a trip I had planned and anticipated for years…Kyle and I sat at an outdoor cafe…I surveyed the bustling Parisian life around me, the wonderful food and appropriate beverage in front of me, the man that I love beside me…and I remember so clearly saying, “I just want to push pause on my life right now.”

We’ve all had those push pause moments…

But of course we know that does not happen…that cafe in Paris was 11 years ago…life moves on through the sacred and the mundane.

—-

In many ways, scripture is the same way. There are mountains and valleys in scripture.

The mountains are the “In the beginning…be still and know…for I know the plans…God so loved the world…Love is patient, love is kind…for the healing of the nations.”

They are the passages that are calligraphied on our walls…attached to our email signatures…adopted as life verses.

Then there are the valleys…the more obscure passages…

The ones about the number of rams to be sacrificed, and genealogies of names we only guess at pronouncing…the kids who call Elijah ‘baldy’ and then are mauled by bears…I’ll let you look that one up later…

These are the ones that do not normally make the Sunday morning round-up or Sunday school lesson…

They are not held up at baseball games…or have churches or non-profits named after them.

And to be fair…most of the Bible is made up of these more obscure verses. We don’t spend a whole lot of time in the book of Naham or Zephania…

But the combination of the two…the mountain and valley passages…come together to make God’s Word…and it is a beautiful combination.

If the Bible were simply one John 3:16 after another…it would dilute its message. Besides…it would never fit on a piece of poster board.

Scripture is a combination of both…and I believe the one highlights the other.

The passage from Micah for this morning in itself is a combination of both the sacred and the mundane.

But it is the mundane verses of this passage that lead us up the mountain to verse 8…arguably one of the most familiar verses in the Bible.

——A verse so important to me that I would call it my life verse…a verse so important to us that our firstborn son bears the name Micah.

But it is the lead up verses that make the mountaintop verse that much more meaningful…

Micah is prophesying in a time where there is no shortage of religious types…In fact, he describes widespread ‘religiosity’…backed by lots of pomp and circumstance. Especially from those shady religious leaders…never trust them.

It was religion-as-usual, but certainly not religion-as-God intended. As so in the opening verses, God lodges a legal case against Israel and asks creation to stand in as the jury.

God states his case: that the people of Israel have failed to be faithful while time after time, God has remained faithful. He reviews the history…much of which we’ve considered this fall: he delivered them from slavery, he gave them leaders such as Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, the list goes on and on.

No matter what…through the sacred and the mundane…God has been faithful.

So the people answer back with a question, “with what shall I come before the Lord? They essentially throw up their hands and say “Guilty as charged! How can we make reparations?”

Sadly, they go on to make a few suggestions…sacrifices, offerings…and we’re right back to where we started…

Its like the only thing they knew to do was go through empty, monotonous motions…and hope those were good enough to appease God.

Micah isn’t buying it…they’re not going to be able to sacrifice their way out of this mess this time…

And so he lays out what God truly wants…and says, “God has told you want he wants…

• Do justice.
• Love kindness.
• and walk humbly with your God. That’s it. That’s what God desires.

Except we know, that’s a lot. Its easy to read and difficult to do. Simple to understand and complicated to enact.

In and of itself, verse 8 is a combination of sacred and mundane.

It begins with the mundane…consider the verbs… Do.  Love.  Walk.

These are everyday verbs…every single one of us do these things every day… as did people in the time of Micah. Do…love…walk….

I’ve referenced my favorite preacher Anna Carter Florence before…she reminds us that we share the verbs of scripture…the nouns are often different…but the verbs are the same.

Abraham, Ruth, Elijah, Micah…they did, they loved, they walked. God is not asking the people of Israel or us to fly…

He is asking us to do, to love, to walk. Simple shared verbs…

But of course, being action verbs and all…God is also not asking us to SIT.

These verbs are meant to go somewhere…to do something. And that something…that makes all they difference…

We can take these mundane verbs and point them at ourselves…or we can point them at sacred.

Our natural tendency is to point these verbs in our direction…and when I fall prey to this, I find that way too much of what I do is wrapped up in me.

Think about all the time and energy that we spend wrapped up in us…all our self- directed action verbs are in a perpetual cul-de-sac.

Worrying, doubting, grooming, stressing…these are verbs that can so easily drive us further and further into ourselves…

But God shows us another way…he spells out a sacred direction…towards justice, kindness, and humility. Away from ourselves and towards God and neighbor.

These are the words that take the ordinary up the mountain, and put the sacred into the mundane.

We aren’t just to do what we want…we are to do justice.

We aren’t just to love what we want…we are love kindness.

We aren’t just to walk however we want…we are to walk with humility.

Mundane and sacred.

Away from ourselves and towards God…and others.

In the religious tradition that nurtured me, one of the early phrases was “For God’s glory and neighbor’s good.”

This is our call.

Each and every day.

From the mountain to the valley…and everywhere in between.

—-

Our quest for the mountaintop experience is understandable.

And once we’re there…we may wish for the pause button…to stay firmly planted on the mountain.

Coming down the mountain can be tough…the mundane brings with it routine, and drudgery, and anxiety.

It’s exhausting…

But the two do not have to be mutually exclusive…and the question becomes… And so how do we infuse the mundane with the sacred?

I would argue its not about grand strokes that require months of vacation planning…

I’m talking about the simple things:

• how we talk to our children even when we’re exhausted.
• how we treat our loved ones even when we’re angry.
• how we show up to our colleagues even when feel passed over.
• how we pour out small acts of kindness in a world that needs it.

Its taking the mundane…our everyday life…and infusing it with the sacred. One verb at a time.

Smiling…giving…embracing…serving…these are everyday mundane verbs that echo…do…love…walk…and that’s our call.Centuries after the prophet Micah, someone else would echo him…

Jesus loved playing in the realm of both the sacred and mundane…he would take simple things…a loaf of bread, a fish, a seed…and do extraordinary things with them.

Because for Jesus, it really wasn’t one or the other. The two wove themselves together…

He saw the image of God in every face he encountered. He called out the ridiculous Temple practices that religious leaders had mandated.

In other words, he took what we like to call mundane and made it sacred and took the “sacred” and made it mundane.

He showed us how to point our verbs… -always towards justice, kindness, and humility.

I loved seeing the students from Fellowship act their hearts out, be stagehands with fancy headsets and everything, and play the music that kept the show moving along…

But I love even more that my kids knew the students by name…because they are Sunday school teachers, and babysitters, and members of our community.

The sacred is great…its hard to beat the mountaintop…but sometimes the mundane is even better.

After all, the mundane is our primary zip code…its where we live almost each and every day.

And so the question is HOW? How will we do, love, and walk?

What is God putting on your heart?

My prayer is that God would take us out of our self-driven cul-de-sacs, and into a journey of justice, kindness, and humility…

November 5, 2017
1 Kings 19:1-18
Jared Ayers

October 29, 2017
1 Kings 5:1-5; 8:1-13
Marlin Vis