What did you expect when you came through these doors for worship today?  Chances are, if you had paid any attention to last week’s bulletin or happened to see the enewsletter or looked at the website, you would have known that on this First Sunday in Advent we would be experiencing the Hanging of the Green, which is a worshipful way of calling attention to the manner in which all of these decorations point to the significance of the Christmas season.

But were you expecting God to show up? The answer to that question depends on how much in need you were to meet God when you came through the Sanctuary doors and took your place in the pew. Sadly, we aren’t always mindful of our need for God’s Presence until we find ourselves in a situation we cannot handle by ourselves. 

It’s like the story of the pastor who had made his way to one of the many Christmas parties he was expected to attend.  As he walked into the foyer of the home, he had stopped to admire an exquisite manger scene lovingly displayed by the hostess in such a prominent place in her home.  But the more he looked at it, the more he saw that the baby Jesus was missing from among the carved figures.  Evidently, his bewilderment was evident for everyone to see, for the hostess came over to offer an explanation.  “We bought that manger scene in Austria and the Oberammergau Passion Play.  But we lost eh baby Jesus years ago and we just never bothered to replace him.”  And then, almost as an aside, she went on to say, “But truth be told, we haven’t missed him very much.”

Most people don’t, until they come across a season in life where hopes have been crushed and dreams have been dashed, and then we pray for Jesus to draw near to do for us what we know we could never do for ourselves.

That’s where God’s people were when Isaiah delivered this prophecy we have before us this morning.  The text comes at a time when God’s people were beginning to return to Jerusalem from their seventy years of exile in Babylon.  That’s roughly three generations removed from the glory the exiles had remembered of the Holy City, and over that seventy years, nothing had been rebuilt.  The place was in shambles.  And the people were disappointed.  “This is what we wanted to come back to?”   The challenge of rebuilding not just the Temple and the city but also their future was more than they could handle by themselves and they needed God to show up.

Some of us can identify with their heartache.  Life has taken a turn for the worst and the glory we once knew has suddenly been taken away – taken away by a failed relationship or a faulty investment or a botched opportunity or a thoughtless word or deed that has come back to haunt us.  We’ve come into this place this morning wondering if God is present among us in these ruins that surround us.   

And the message of Christmas is, “Yes, God is very present.”  In spite of the fact that too often we act as if we really don’t have much of a need for God to be at work in our lives, when the time comes that we see that in fact we do, God doesn’t hold that arrogance against us.  As the prophet Isaiah pleads on behalf of his people, “God does not remember our sins forever.  Instead, God looks on us, for we are all His people” (v.9).  And God shows up, just when we need Him most.

You may be in such a place this morning.  The good news of this First Sunday of Advent is that with God there is always hope, because in time God always acts on behalf of those who wait upon Him, of those who trust Him.  For those persons God shows up to do what only God can do.

Do you remember the name Jessica McClure.  The country was riveted by her story when years ago, just eighteen months old, baby Jessica fell into an oil well in her aunt’s backyard in Midland, Texas.  Normally, people would love to have an oil well in their backyard and the income that’s generated from it.  But on this occasion, that well was a worthless dungeon that threatened the peace of the McClure family.

I remember the story like it was yesterday.  Over a period of four days over four hundred rescuers worked to get baby Jessica out of the well.  They could only imagine how distraught a little 18 month old must have been.  Finally, someone with some spiritual sense decided that somebody needed to be lowered into that well to be with Jessica and to find a way to comfort her and to let her know that help was on the way.  And it was that decision that saved Jessica’s life.  Even though she was a tiny baby, alone in the darkness, with smothering panic and a sense of disorientation she couldn’t have possibly explained, she could feel another’s embrace and the encouragement that presence brought.

Jessica McClure turned 30 years old this past May.  She still answers to the name, “Baby Jessica,” even though she’s now married and the mother of two children herself, because she knows that her life is a miracle and just when everyone else thought all hope was lost, God showed up to answer everyone’s prayers.

And that is what we gather to celebrate this morning.  God has shown up.  God has come down to affirm our mortal life, to join the sacred with the secular and the holy with the profane, to lighten our darkness, and to save us from our sins.  From beyond time and space, down past galaxies and heavenly firmaments, in an event that surpasses our best attempts to wrap our little brains around it, God has come down.  In a little village called Bethlehem, in a lowly stable, to a humble couple from a backwoods place called Bethlehem, God heard the prayers of His people and in Jesus came down.  Hope springs eternal.  And nothing is ever lost. 

It’s remarkable, is it not, how quickly in life we learn the lessons of pecking order and how in the course of life we find ourselves in vulnerable positions we start looking for someone with more power to come to our defense?  It’s something like the story of the first grader who comes running in from the playground to find his teacher.  The child is shouting, “Teacher!  Teacher!  There’s a big fight on the playground and the boy who’s on the bottom wants you to come quick!”

I would think he would.  After all, it only takes one time on the bottom of the pile to know how much of a blessing it is when someone comes along who can pull you out and pull you up.  And just as important, when you are the one who is in a position to do the pulling, you know how much of a blessing it is to be in a place where you can offer that kind of help.   

That’s something of the point Jesus is making with this teaching before us from Matthew’s Gospel.  Unlike today, believers in the first century world were by and large on the bottom of virtually every demographic category in their day.  Granted, there were some disciples who were formally educated and there were even some who were materially wealthy.  But for the most part early disciples were poor and not formally educated, and so they often found themselves in places where they were hungry and thirsty, sick and in prison.  And in order for their needs to be met they had to take care of one another.   

You would think such care would have been an easy thing to do.  You’d think that as followers of Jesus those who had means would have been reasonably quick to rally to the cause of those believers who were less fortunate.  But as is the case today, the pull prosperous believers found themselves having to fight was the pull to gravitate toward other prosperous and powerful people who could help them if the need ever arose.  It is evidently a challenge of our human nature, and always has been, to give of ourselves to those who have less status than we have.

And that is what makes this teaching of Jesus so difficult to hear.  People who are prone to following only the top dogs need to pay attention to those underdogs who otherwise are not able to fend for themselves.  For while we may flinch at the thought of putting ourselves in situations where we end up taking a risk or making a sacrifice to side with people who are on the bottom of the pecking order, that’s precisely what Jesus calls us to do; and he’s not afraid to scare us to move us in that direction.   

For example, this teaching takes place in the context of Jesus’ judgment on the nations, a judgment he says will take place at the time of his Second Coming.  When Jesus gives this teaching, he is far from the top of the pecking order in his day.  He’s only a mere rabbi from the backwoods part of a backwoods nation. But when he comes, he will come as King of Kings and Lord of Lords!  How does Jesus phrase it?  “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.”  I’d say that’s moving on up the ladder big time.  And of course, when that happens, everyone will want to be on the side of Jesus.

But that will not be possible according to Jesus.  On the day that the Son of Man comes in his glory there will be a separation – a separation between those who have been on Jesus’ side all along and those who have not.  And the difference between the two groups will be how each treated the less fortunate of their day.  “Whatever you did or did not do for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did or did not do for me.”

What a powerful rebuke this teaching is to a world that is infected with what someone has called the love of “rankism” (Robert Fuller, Somebodies and Nobodies).  By that I mean the tendency many folk have to admire and imitate those who have position in life.  How else might we explain our culture’s infatuation with celebrity status?  In a more sane world none of us would give a moment’s notice to some of the stuff that passes for front-page news.  That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have a heart for anyone who may going through a tough stretch in life, celebrity or otherwise.  But it is to say that at the same time we are showing concern for the rich and famous in our world, we should also be showing equal care to those whose names no one really knows.  As another person once phrased it, “If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow, you can’t pick and choose who the sparrow’s going to be.  It’s got to be everybody” (Madeline L’Engle).   

So, how do we move in that direction so that we don’t unconsciously and unintentionally find ourselves moving closer and closer to the non-Jesus crowd?  Maybe the place for us to begin is by seeing ourselves as we really are – hapless and helpless humans who really don’t have a leg to stand on by ourselves.  Maybe the place for us to begin caring more about people on the margins is to recognize how far Jesus has brought us and how he has pulled us out and pulled us up on so many occasions.

That seems to have been Matthew’s strategy in how he put together his account of the Jesus story.  Matthew, you’ll remember, was a tax collector, and tax collectors were a social grouping in the first century world that was about as dispossessed and marginalized as a social group could be.  In the ninth chapter of his gospel Matthew describes the circumstances in which Jesus came to his house, dined at his table, and accepted his fellowship.  When the religious crowd showed shock at Jesus’ choice of company, Jesus answered them, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor; it’s the sick.”  And quoting the prophet Hosea, Jesus went on to say, “You need to go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”  Jesus was saying that God’s heart is for His people not just to sing of His mercy and grace.  God’s heart is for His people to join Him in giving concreted expressions to His mercy and grace, in the same way as did Jesus.

Can you do that?  Can you join God in extending His mercy and grace to people who are in deep need, particularly those who cannot in any way fend for themselves?  Can you use the resources that you have or leverage the influence you possess to pull out and pull up those who are on the bottom of life?  Can you give up a night to come to the church when it’s our turn to host Family Promise?  Can you give up a day to read to a struggling child at Grantswood Elementary?  Can you tutor a student at Cornerstone School?  Can you mentor a woman at Well House who’s trying her best to escape the maelstrom of human trafficking?  Can you volunteer in Perry County, or can you donate to Big Oak Ranch or the Salvation Army or the Jimmie Hale Mission or any number of other organizations that seek to encourage someone who’s less fortunate than you?  These are little things that many in our church are already doing.  And whatever little thing you can do, when you do it out of sincere thanksgiving for all that Jesus has done for you, the power of the Holy Spirit will use it to stir others to join you in serving others in life-changing ways.

I think what Jesus is telling us in this teaching is that it all boils down to just how much we care. 

It’s like the story of the young boy who was on an errand for his mother and had gone to the store to buy a dozen eggs.  The family was poor.  They didn’t have a lot of money.  So they didn’t have a lot of food.  The eggs, therefore, were of utmost importance.

Walking out of the store, the boy tripped and dropped the sack with the eggs in it.  All of them broke.  The sidewalk was an eggy mess.  But the boy did his best not to cry.

A few folk started gathering to see if the he was OK and to tell him how sorry they were about the eggs.  In the midst of their words of pity one man reached into his pocket and handed the boy a quarter, and then turning to the group, he said to all who had gathered around the boy, “I care 25 cents worth; how much do the rest of you care?”

This morning on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we’ve gathered to give worship to a Savior who cared enough to give everything for us when we needed it most.  The Bible puts it this way: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).  If then we are truly thankful for the difference Jesus has made in our lives, I don’t think we’ll find it unduly difficult to give of what we have, small as it may see, to be used in his name to help those who are where we once were.

Of course, when you do that, there will always be people who wonder about your sanity.  “They don’t deserve it.  They don’t appreciate it.  They’ll never move beyond where they are.”  And maybe that’s generally true.  But every now and then grace gets through and makes a difference.  Grace gets through and pulls someone out and pulls someone up.

So, make sure that you do all that Jesus calls you to do.  That way the Son of Man returns in his glory to separate those he knows from those he does not recognize, you’ll be on the right side because you chose to help those who could not help themselves.  You won’t just call for the teacher to come and help someone who’s on the bottom.  In Jesus’ name you’ll help them yourself.  And you know what the Teacher will say when he finally shows up.  “Whatever you’ve done for the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you’ve also done for me.”

Matthew 25:14-30

It is a peculiar reality that we are living at a time when people have so much at their disposal that they can squander it away in the most unusual fashion.  For example, a while back I came across the story of a North Carolina couple that flies all over the country putting on special events for dogs.  They do dog weddings.  They arrange dog bar mitzvahs.  They plan dog birthday parties.  It seems they got started in in this strange business by baking “all natural” dog biscuits, which led to doggie cakes and doggie pizzas.  Now they are hired by people of means to put on these special events for pet dogs.  Obviously, these events are not so much for the dogs as they are for the owners, who are people who have more money than they know what to do with so they can squander it away on silly events while in other places real needs go unmet and real people hurt. 

On one hand I understand that it’s their money and they can spend it as they please.  But on the other hand I can’t help but wonder about what kind of statement it makes about the people who choose to spend their money in this way. 

Of course, before I start coming down so hard on what I think is other people’s frivolity, perhaps I need to look closely at my own spending habits.  Even though I don’t have enough disposable resources to throw a party for my dog, maybe I need to look at how I am using what’s at my disposal and how faithful I’m being with my time, my talents, and the things that are in my life. 

That’s really what this parable before us this morning is calling us to do.  Most of you know the parable.  A man gets ready to go on a journey and before he heads out, he parcels out responsibilities to his servants in the interim, big responsibilities.  Specifically, he gives them talents.  To one servant he gives five talents.  To another he gives two talents.  To a third servant he gives one talent.

At this point two things are significant.  First, these talents represent huge sums of money.  One talent in today’s economy would be equivalent of close to a million dollars, so that even the servant who gets one talent receives the responsibility of taking care of more money that most people ever get to see at any given moment in life!  Secondly, each of the servants was given an amount of money “according to his ability.”  In other words, some of the servants could be trusted with more responsibility than other servants, but all of the servants were trusted with some measure of responsibility.  None of the servants was considered unworthy of their master’s trust.   

So, the man leaves on his journey and the servants are left with the decision of what to do with this fortune entrusted to them.  The servant who’s received the five talents immediately invests them and in the end comes up with five talents more!  The servant who’s received the two talents does likewise and experiences a similar return.  But the servant who’s received the one talent goes off and buries his master’s money in the ground, which was a not so uncommon practice in ancient times, and for that matter, even today!  I can’t tell you on how many occasions I’ve come across people in my ministry who confided to their preacher that they had money buried around their property.   

After a period of time the master returns, and asks for an accounting of his servants’ stewardship.  The first two servants step up, report on their efforts, and receive the master’s blessing for their faithfulness.  They have honored their master with their stewardship of what he entrusted to them, and the master is more than happy to bless them for their devotion.

But when the third servant steps forward, the one who buried his talent, notice how he does nothing to accept the responsibility for his poor performance, but instead projects the blame for it onto his master.  “I knew that you were a hard man,” he says to his master, “so I was afraid and hid what you gave me.”

I wonder how many times we justify our irresponsibility with what God has given us by casting the blame on everywhere but where it truly belongs.  How does the old saying go?  “The reason people blame things on others is because there’s only one another choice.” 

“I knew you were a hard man.”  Indeed he was, because the master doesn’t buy the third servant’s excuse.  “If you knew that I was a hard man, then you should have at least put the money in the bank, where it would have drawn interest!”  But as far as the master is concerned, it’s not so much the results that are important; it’s the faithfulness.  It’s not, “How much money did you earn?”  It’s, “What did you do with what you were given?”

So, what are you doing with what God has given you?

I think that too many of us are like this third servant in that our fear keeps us from investing ourselves in ways that advance God’s Kingdom.  We can blame everything and everyone for our reluctance to risk something bold for God, but the truth is that when we fail to launch out in faith for Christ’s sake we are showing just how little we trust Jesus to see us through.   

Think about it this way.  “What might you do for God if you had no fear whatsoever?”  What might you be able to accomplish using the resources at your disposal if you were not in the least way timid about how things turned out?  What would your witness look like if you went about it as a great adventure?

That thought crossed my mind as I was reading an article this week.  The article had to do with a series of trades made by a Canadian Internet blogger that began with a single red paper clip and ended with a house in small-town Saskatchewan.  The blogger, who makes his living as a handyman, took a paper clip, traded it for a pen, then traded that for a ceramic knob, then traded that for a generator, and then continued to trade up in small increments until he ended up with a small, secure “fixer-upper” in Kipling, Saskatchewan, worth about $45,000 in US dollars.  As I read that article I thought to myself, “What a modern day rendering of the parable Jesus told!”  Though in this case, a man begins with a simple, insignificant asset – a paper clip – and turns it into something of remarkably more value.

I wonder if God isn’t saying to Himself, “Why don’t my people think that creatively when it comes to what I make available to them?”  “Why don’t they trust Me not just to see them through but to bless them with how they use their abundance?”

After all, there is blessing in this parable.  Notice how it ends.  “Take the talent from him who did nothing with it and give it to the one who has ten talents.  For everyone who has will be given more and he will have an abundance, but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”

From this ending it appears that Jesus is more concerned about our squandering opportunities to be used in his service than he is about our squandering resources God makes available to us.  It’s like the old Hebrew wisdom saying: “God pours more into a full vessel than He does an empty one.”

So, how blessed do you want to be?  It depends on how faithful you are with whatever God has given you.

It’s like the story of the man who amassed a sizeable fortune in the construction business.  He had a foreman who was extremely helpful in helping him to amass this fortune.  So one day, the owner decided to take a vacation and told his foreman, “While I’m gone, I want you to build a house that is wonderful.  Spare no expense on materials and construction.  I’ll be gone for six months, but when I return I want the keys to the house.”

Uncharacteristically, the foreman started the house only to realize that if he used substandard materials, he would be able to pocket most of the money the boss had left him.  And that’s exactly what he did. The house was a second-rate house made with second-rate materials, but to the non-discerning eye, no one could tell otherwise.

After six months, the owner returned and asked for the keys to the house.  “Did you build me a great house?” he asked.  “Yes, sir,” the foreman replied.  “Did you use the finest materials?  Did you spare any expense?”  When foreman answered that he had done everything the owner instructed him to do, the owner then took the keys and said, “That’s great, because the house is for you!”

In the same way a candle loses nothing but giving off its light, so you lose nothing by using and investing whatever resources God has given you.   

So, on this Sunday before Thanksgiving, consider not only your blessings. Consider also how blessed you want to be. And be respectful of God’s bounty. And be grateful for it to be sure. But be faithful with whatever it is that God has made available. The life you’re building will turn out to be your own. 

I am not a hunter, not in any form, shape, or fashion. Even though I grew up in the very heart of hunting in West Alabama, I just never got into it. But even though I never got bit by the hunting bug, I do remember a story to which everyone, hunters and non-hunters alike can probably relate.

As the story has it, in the backwoods of West Alabama there once lived a man who went by the name of Quill. Quill spent a good part of his life hunting and fishing, and he prided himself on paying no attention whatsoever to hunting seasons or hunting limits. Quill did what he wanted when he wanted.

Now, the game warden in that area did his best to catch Quill breaking the law, but somehow Quill always managed to stay one step ahead. One day the game warden heard through the grapevine that Quill was going to hunt something out of season and the game warden determined to catch Quill doing something against the law. So on the night before Quill was to go out the next morning, the game warden sneaked down to Quill’s hunting lodge and hid on top of the roof. “That way,” thought the game warden, “I’ll get the jump on Quill so that when he heads out, I’ll be right behind him.”

As daylight came the game warden could hear Quill get up, start a fire, and put on a pot of coffee. Then he heard Quill open the oven, and it wasn’t long before he could smell coffee brewing and biscuits baking. It smelled so good the game warden could hardly contain himself.   

Suddenly, out onto his porch walked Quill and looking up toward the roof, he hollered to the game warden, “Come on down here and get some of these coffee and biscuits while they’re still hot! Come on down here, game warden, because I know you’re out there!” Then Quill walked back in and shut the door behind him.   

The game warden couldn’t believe it. He thought he had finally outwitted Quill and now he’d been had once again. In resignation the game warden climbed down from the roof, walked up on the porch, walked into the house, and took a seat at the table. “Well, Quill, I just want you to tell me; how in the world did you know I was out there?”

Quill paused for a moment and then said, “I didn’t. I just walk out there and say that every morning just in case you are.”

Quill may not have always been on the right side of the law. But he knew enough about the law always to take precautions. He knew enough always to be ready.

I think Quill would have appreciated the story that’s before us this morning from Matthew’s Gospel, the story that Jesus told of the wise and foolish maidens. According to Jesus, there were ten maidens who went out to join a wedding party to await the arrival of a bridegroom. Five of the maidens brought extra oil for their lamps, but five of them didn’t.

For some reason the bridegroom was delayed in his arrival. And all the while the sun was setting, the darkness was falling, the lamps were flickering, and the oil was running out. The maidens who had forgotten to bring extra oil started begging the ones who did to give them some of their oil. But the maidens with the extra oil wouldn’t part with their oil, lest they run out when the bridegroom finally arrived. So while the foolish maidens had to leave the waiting party to try to find oil for their lamps, the bridegroom arrived, the party began, and the doors were closed so that no late arrivers would be allowed inside.

Pity the foolish maidens as they beat upon the doors, begging the bridegroom to let them in. They had only been careless. They still wanted to participate in the party. So maybe they had been a little heedless. Maybe they had been preoccupied with other matters that the need to stockpile some oil just fell through the cracks. Couldn’t the bridegroom cut them some slack? Couldn’t the bridegroom get over their lack of preparation and let them into the party?

According to Jesus, while he might have let them in, he chose not to. Instead he told them, “Truly, I don’t even know you.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m afraid I know where I fit in this story. I’m afraid I fit in with the foolish maidens, and I don’t think I’m by myself in that regard. Let me explain. I can be one of the world’s worst procrastinators. For years I tried to convince myself that I simply work best under pressure, but that’s not necessarily the case. I just like to put off to tomorrow what’s possible to take care of today. But here’s what I’ve discovered in the process. I’ve discovered that when I go to burn the midnight oil to take care of a certain matter, like the maidens in Jesus’ story, more times than not I find the oil has been depleted. 

In this story Jesus told isn’t just a morality tale on taking care of business. This story is one that deals with the advent of God’s Kingdom. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like ten maidens who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.”And that is why we need so desperately to hear it.    

After all, sometimes the greatest source of our procrastination is in the realm of our spiritual commitments. When it comes to our faith and practice, procrastination can be our middle names. You know what I’m talking about. We sit in a worship service and the Spirit falls heavy on our hearts. There’s a commitment the Spirit calls us to make, a decision the Spirit wants us to do. But in response we grip the pew and offer up our excuses: “I’m too young (or too old). I’m too successful (or not successful enough). I’m not good enough (or there’s really nothing wrong with me).” “I’ll wait until later. I’ll consider it tomorrow.” And we assume Jesus will understand.

Jesus will understand. But one day his understanding will come to an end. How did he say the bridegroom will put it? “Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.” What Jesus means is that one day the door to the Kingdom will be shut. One day there will be no more time for preparations. The ones who have been ready will blissfully enter in, but the ones who have been lazy and lackluster will most assuredly be shut out.   

So, how do you imagine it will be for you on that day? How ready will the Bridegroom find you when he returns? How primed and prepared will Jesus see you?

I believe it was the novelist Graham Greene who once observed, “There is always, in everyone’s life, one moment when the door opens, and lets the future in” (The Power and the Glory). I so wish I could tell you when that moment will come for you. I so wish I could spell it out and give you some sort of “Save the Date” so that you could put it on your calendar and make plans weeks or months or years in advance. But I can’t do it, and neither can anyone else. All I can tell you is to be patient and to be ready, and to do that each day as you anticipate the Bridegroom of the church to return.

My home in West Alabama was a railroad town. Growing up, I not only heard hunting stories, I also heard a railroad story or two. One of my favorites had to do with an apprentice locomotive engineer whose first freight run was across a deserted stretch of rail in the western part of the state. While passing one night through yet another forsaken crossing, the apprentice remarked to his seasoned mentor, “It doesn’t make any sense for me to use this loud whistle. I’ll bet no one has come across this junction in less than ten years.” “You’re probably right,” the older engineer answered back. “But blow the whistle anyway, because you never know when he’ll be coming back.”

I dare say that right now most of you know what you need to be doing in order to be getting ready for Jesus to come and usher in the Kingdom. You know the commitments you need to be making. You know the responsibilities to which you need to be attending. You know the preparations you need to be looking after.  

I can’t make those for you, and you can’t make mine for me. When it comes to the practice of our religion, it’s every person for himself. It’s every individual doing for herself what needs to be done. But what we can do is remind each other that one day the Bridegroom is coming and that today is the time to start getting ready.

It may have been a long time since he’s been here. It’s been a long time since the earth was blessed with his presence. But go ahead and make your preparations and be sure to touch all the bases. You don’t know the day. You do not know the hour. But one day he is coming. And when he does, he just wants all of us to be ready. He just wants all of us to be always ready.

Matthew 23:1-12

“Practice What Jesus Preached”

November 5, 2017, Day of Remembrance

Judge Raymond Voet sits on the bench of the District Court of Ionia County, Michigan.  Like many such judges, Judge Voet has a strict no-cellphone policy in his court so that the court proceedings are not interrupted by obnoxious-sounding rings.  If someone in Judge Voet’s court has a cellphone go off while the court is in session, he will immediately charge them with contempt of court and, on top of that charge, impose a $25 fine.  He obviously means business.

Well, wouldn’t you know it?  On a fine, Friday afternoon some years ago, Judge Voet had to enforce the policy on himself.  The prosecutor was in the middle of his closing argument when the judge’s new smartphone, which was in his shirt pocket, loudly requested that Voet give Siri, the phone’s electronic personal assistant, commands for voice dialing.  As the judge explained, “I guess I bumped it by accident, which made it start talking really loudly, “I don’t understand you.  I don’t understand you.”  When the judge tried to turn it off, the phone kept on talking, creating a serious disturbance.

So, at the next recess, can you guess what the judge did?  He found himself in contempt of court and fined himself $25.  And when interviewed about his experience, the judge calmly explained (as judges would be prone to do), “Judges are not above the rules.  I broke the rule and now I have to live with the consequences.”   

Last time I checked, Judge Voet still sits on the bench, and with good reason.  After all, who wouldn’t cast his vote for a judge who practices what he preaches?   

Sadly, such a show of integrity is becoming more and more the exception than it is the rule, even among people who call themselves people of faith.  Some years ago, I remember someone passing on to me a church bulletin blooper from a New Jersey Presbyterian church that proudly noted how their church was an “ethically diverse congregation.”  Obviously, what the bulletin meant to say was that their church was an “ethnically diverse congregation.”  But that’s not how it came out.  It came out that they were an “ethically diverse congregation,” or as perhaps one wag might put it, “a church full of hypocrites.”

Isn’t that the charge that every congregation must contend with?  As long as I’ve been in ministry, that’s the one criticism I’ve heard of the church more than all the others put together.  “There are too many hypocrites in the church.  The church is full of nothing but phonies.  The church is made up of people who say one thing and do another.”  In the eyes of those who are against us, we don’t do like the honorable Judge Voet.  In their eyes we don’t practice what we preach.

Perhaps that’s why it’s always a good thing for the church to revisit Jesus’ words to those in his day who evidently wrestled with the inconsistency of their witness in much the same way some folk seem to do in our day.    

The setting of the text has Jesus preparing those who have been following him to give serious consideration to the integrity of their witness.  For three years, Jesus has been pouring out his heart about how people might show through word and deed God’s Kingdom here on earth as it is always being shown in heaven.  Now, Jesus is preparing himself to pour out his life for the forgiveness of sins, and he wants to make sure that his sacrifice will serve the purpose God intends.    

Most of Jesus’ concern is with the inconsistency of the religious leaders of his day.  Actually, that’s a nice way to put it.  Most of Jesus’ concern is with their hypocrisy.  After all, we’ve seen already how it was the religious leaders who had been giving Jesus the most grief, concerned as they were over how Jesus’ popularity with the crowds had become a threat to their place in the people’s hearts.  Now, Jesus holds up these leaders as a primary example of people who talk a good game but are all show.  In other words, the distance between what they say and what they do fails to lead people to the joyful life of service God has sent him to help people know.

“The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So you must obey them and do everything they tell you.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (vv.1-2).”  That is the strongest of indictments, is it not?  And then Jesus goes on to explain how these leaders enjoy the limelight far too much and the respect their position holds.  Their hearts are to do whatever furthers their own agendas instead of God’s agenda, and in the process they do little more than burden people down with joy-killing rules and regulations, which they always a find a way to exclude themselves from following.  They do not practice what they preach.

Jesus knew long ago what people today have also come to understand: No one can get past a practice of religion that doesn’t move its followers to match word and deed.  If a group of people honestly believe that what they hold most dear in their hearts is foundational truth, then what they hold in their hearts will ultimately show up in their behavior.  Otherwise their belief is little more than a sham and pretense, a pretext for holding others up to a set of standards to which they would never think of holding themselves. 

At this point I would normally sense the need to provide some example or illustration of the disappointment and distress that result from people not matching word and deed.  But instead I want to offer up a more positive example, a story of the good that comes about when someone actually lives into his confession.

You know the name of Henry Heimlich?  You may not actually know the name, but you do know the maneuver that Henry Heimlich came up with, the Heimlich maneuver.  Since its inception in 1974, that maneuver of bear hugging a choking victim and using abdominal thrusts to expel a throat obstruction has become a national safety icon.  It has been taught in schools.  It has been portrayed in movies.  It has been displayed on restaurant posters and endorsed by medical authorities.  It is also the stuff of brink-of-death stories told over the years by famous celebrities and politicians who credit the Heimlich maneuver with saving their lives.  Perhaps there’s even someone here this morning who could add his or her testimony to the list of such stories.

Henry Heimlich died in December of 2016, after a lengthy career as a thoracic surgeon and medical maverick.  His anti-choking technique is credited with saving an estimated 100,000 lives, which is an impressive statistic when you stop and think about it.

But on May 23, 2016, at 96 years of age, just seven months prior to his death, and four decades after inventing the maneuver, Dr. Heimlich used it himself to save the life of an 87 year old woman who was choking on something at their senior residence facility in Cincinnati, Ohio.  According to Dr. Heimlich, it was the first time he had ever used the maneuver in an emergency.  A woman by the name of Patty Ris had by chance sat down at Dr. Heimlich’s table in a dining hall and had begun enjoying a hamburger, when in her words, “The next thing I know, I can’t breathe for choking so hard.”  But it was at that moment that Henry Heimlich sprang into action, did his thing, and saved Mrs. Ris’s life.   

Now, imagine the horror if Dr. Heimlich had thought to himself, “It’s beneath me to do such a thing.  That maneuver is what I trained others to do.  I came up with the idea, but I wouldn’t think of doing it myself.”  You wouldn’t think very much of that confession, would you?  But when the need arose, Heimlich did what he had spent his life saying was something everybody needs to be ready to do.  He practiced what he preached, and if Patty Ris were with us this morning, she’d tell us that she is so glad that he did.

So, what do you know and who do you know, and how important do you think that others should know it too?  If you do think it’s important, then understand that evangelism and ethics go hand in hand, especially in a day when people will not give a hearing to the Gospel when they see no connection between our witness and our everyday life. But when they do, that’s when salvation occurs.

So, practice what Jesus preached.  And know that when you do, he will exalt you.  And he will use your faithful witness to exalt others and bring them to a place where they too may know the joy of God’s salvation and the difference it makes in everyday life.

Matthew 22:34-46 

Back in the days when shopping malls were places everybody frequented, you often saw people scattered about with clipboards in hand stopping shoppers to seek their opinion on topics ranging from political causes to entertainment tastes to leisure activities to favorite sports teams. I’ve even bumped into some who were conducting religious surveys. Nowadays, most of those surveys are done by telephone or email, but the end result is still the same. People are always trying to gauge where the Court of Public Opinion stands, not so much out of mere curiosity but more as a way to initiate a conversation that might those who answer the survey to consider an option they may never have considered before.

I rarely respond to those types of surveys, but I do always respect them. I respect them because of how I share the conviction of those who are doing them that opinions do matter. Opinions really do matter. Opinions matter because they reflect deeply held beliefs, beliefs that people may not even know that they own until someone invites them to bring their beliefs to the surface, beliefs that ultimately translate into behaviors.

This notion of belief ultimately translating into behavior is behind the question that Jesus posed to those religious authorities who originally had posed a question to him. By now, if you’ve been paying attention as we’ve walked these past weeks over this section of Matthew’s account of the Jesus story, the religious authorities have been looking for ways to trip Jesus up and bring Jesus down in the eyes of the crowd. Consider the questions they’ve been reading off from their clipboards. “By what authority do you minister?” “Should we or should we not pay the temple tax to Caesar?” “If a woman has married seven brothers and all of them die, whose wife will she be at the resurrection?” Each question carries an agenda, which Jesus artfully dodges so that he can point his interrogators to God’s agenda, which is the only one that really matters. That theme of Jesus elevating God’s agenda could not be made any clearer than in this last exchange that Jesus must endure – this exchange we have before us this morning between Jesus and the Pharisees. 

Matthew tells us the Pharisees had chosen one of their best examiners, an expert in the Law of Moses, to put Jesus’ knowledge to the test. “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Much as with last week’s story, this question again intended to put Jesus in a “no win” situation. If he answered with one of the commandments, then his examiner could have used the other nine against him. But Jesus, seeing the trap, refused to be caught in it, answering it by combining the Shema, the most famous of sayings in the Jewish religion taken from the book of Deuteronomy, with a passage from Leviticus so that it came out: “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself” (or as we phrase it here in our church, “Love God and live with grace and generosity”). 

That answer alone would have been enough to have silenced the Pharisees, but Jesus pressed the matter further by turning the tables on his questioners and posing to them an even more important question, a foundational question upon which every person of faith ultimately builds his or her life: “What do you think about the Christ (the Messiah)?”  “Whose son is he?” 

The concept of the Christ was a pivotal one for the Jewish people. Given how their history had been marked by one occupation after another, with the exception of the years in which the house of David held the throne, God’s people longed for the day when God would send His promised deliverer, His “Anointed One,” who would finally and definitively deliver God’s people from every enemy, every danger, and every snare.

For 21 chapters Matthew has been patiently guiding his readers, who were originally Jewish in composition, to see how Jesus is that Promised Messiah. From the angel’s command to Joseph to name Mary’s child Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1:21) to Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi to this passage where Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees, Matthew’s account of the Jesus story is geared toward helping people to see that Jesus is the one in whom all of God’s redemptive purposes have come to pass and that our hopes for a promising future are all wrapped up in him and him alone. God has no “Plan B.” There is no one else to whom we can turn for our salvation. Even when we may be tempted to turn Jesus into a Messiah that fits our preconceptions, we must reject such temptation and embrace Jesus for who he is: a Suffering Servant, who was crucified, as the Apostle Paul puts it, “to cancel the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us” (Col. 2:14) and raised from the dead on the third day that we might have “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

You say, “I’d never yield to a temptation like that!” Be careful. That’s exactly what the Pharisees would have said, even when they looked for a Messiah 180 degrees different from Jesus – a mighty warrior who would lift up the sword to conquer the hated Romans, which is why Jesus raised the question about David, the shepherd king, and how he could have called the Messiah his “son” and yet yielded his own authority to him? Jesus asked that question to challenge their misconceptions of what they expected the Christ to be and to call them to accept the Messiah who was standing right before them.   

This story reminds me of something I heard Barbara Brown Taylor, the eloquent Episcopal priest and teacher of preachers, once say. “Blessed are those who do not let the Messiah they are expecting blind them to the Messiah who is standing right in front of them” (God in Pain, p.21). For the longest time, I couldn’t appreciate that saying, until one day I recognized my own Pharisaical tendencies in how I had embraced a Political Jesus, who shared the same political views I have, or a Touchdown Jesus, who loved the same teams that I loved and worked to help them win the day against all manner of rivals, or Therapist Jesus, who loved me just the way that I was and didn’t see any need for me to change anything about myself, or Spirituality Jesus, who detested organized religion in the same ways I sometimes do and just wanted me to reach my human potential. I say all of that, of course, somewhat tongue in cheek. But you see where I’m going. You’ve had to contend with those False Messiahs as well so that what you think about Jesus as the Christ goes far beyond your own desires and your own take on things. You’ve had to come to the place where you were willing to do what Jesus called you to do: to deny yourself, and to take up your cross and to follow hard after him (Mt. 16:24-26). You’ve had to come to the place where you were ready to stand in the presence of One who knows you for who you really are, the good and bad of it all, and crosses all boundaries to touch your life in such a way that you see things you never saw, hear things you never heard, and feel things you never felt. You’ve had to come to the place where all other loves and loyalties have had to take a back seat to your love and loyalty to Jesus.

Is that the place where you stand this morning? I know I don’t have a clipboard with me this morning, but how you answer that question really matters. Your opinion really does matter. It matters because of how what you believe about Jesus will eventually show up in your behavior, and whether or not you live every moment of every day loving God and living with grace and generosity because of how you simply cannot get over the difference it makes to see how in Jesus God so loves and is so gracious and so generous to you.

Matthew 22:15-22

We Americans like to pride ourselves on being a “nation of law.” By that we mean that here in our country, in spite of our passionate dedication to every form of freedom, no one gets to make the rules up as he goes along. There are parameters that have been put in place to insure that we might enjoy a stable and secure life. But sometimes people can go overboard and laws can remain on the books long after their usefulness has expired. 

Cases in point: In Amarillo, Texas, it is against the law to take a bath on the main street during banking hours.  In Portland, Oregon, it’s illegal to wear roller skates in public restrooms. In Halethorpe, Maryland, a kiss lasting more than a second is an illegal act. Lists of such laws go on and on. Suffice it to say that down through the centuries, we humans have been inclined to live by the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. 

I’m sure that in their day each of those laws made some sort of sense. Most likely, each was a reaction to a situation that had gotten out of control so that by enacting such a law a sense of calm was restored and the status quo preserved. But as time went on, the context changed and the laws became unnecessary. People took baths in the privacy of their homes, whenever they felt inclined. Roller skating became an activity confined to neighborhood rinks. People started showing their affection for as long as they desired. You get the point. The order such silly laws attempted to restore was a short-lived order so that something better and more workable had eventually to come along to do the same thing in a less rigid sort of way. 

It’s easy for us to roll our eyes at such arcane and outdated acts, until you step back and think about how over the years our own walk with Christ has at times been hamstrung by similarly silly lists of do’s and don’ts. I remember growing up in a church that had a generic, Baptist Sunday School Board-approved church covenant pasted on the inside front cover of the hymnal, which in part read that we would “avoid all tattling, backbiting, and excessive anger,” along with the commitment “to abstain from all worldly amusements” on the Sabbath, or words to that effect.   

I don’t mean to make light or poke fun at past efforts to inject a bit of discipline into our witness for Christ. Boundaries are helpful for providing some necessary structure to what we feel led to do as the God’s people. It’s just that sometimes in our efforts to inject a measure of accountability into our Christian witness we unwittingly distance ourselves from the demands of true discipleship. After all, it’s really so much easier to reduce faith to a list of do’s and don’ts, regardless of whether the list comes from mindless fundamentalism or mindless liberalism. You always know where you stand, which helps reduce the anxiety of not having to make hard choices about what is faithful and what is not. But while such legalism is reducing our anxiety on one hand, it is at the same time robbing us of our joy on the other.

That’s one of the messages Jesus was trying to convey in his exchange with the Pharisees and Herodians, as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. You should know that the Pharisees and Herodians were on opposite sides of the political spectrum in the first century world. The Pharisees resented Rome and were therefore considered to be the political and religious progressives in their day, while the Herodians benefitted from Rome’s patronage and were therefore Caesar’s puppets. Neither agreed on much of anything, except when it came to their opposition to Jesus. Both groups saw Jesus as a huge threat to their standing among the people and so they had come together to shame Jesus into oblivion.   

As they approach Jesus you can hear the sarcasm dripping in their voice. “Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity, and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by people because you pay no attention to who they are. So, tell us your opinion. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” 

It was a legalistic trap – black or white, up or down, left or right, yes or no – and you can see the dilemma Jesus was faced with. Either way he answered their trap question, one of the parties would have used it against him.   

So, what did Jesus do? He answered them in a way that confronted them with the hard but joyful choice of learning to see all of life as falling under the purview of a gracious and liberating God. Taking the coin that they used to pay the temple tax, (which by the way Jesus’ opponents had no problem procuring) Jesus called their attention to how it was marked with the face and the inscription of Caesar, who even on his coinage demanded to be recognized as a divine being and high priest of the Roman pantheon. And when Jesus made his opponents acknowledge the obvious, that through their use of the coin they had already sold out to Caesar, Jesus challenged them to elevate their devotion with what may be one of his most quoted teachings: “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s; and to God what is God’s” – as if there’s nothing in life that does not fall under the purview of God.   

Don’t make the mistake of hearing Jesus saying that there is a clear division between what belongs to the Caesars of this world and what belongs to God. Don’t make the mistake of compartmentalizing your life and your faith so that you have work in this compartment and family in this compartment and money in this compartment and politics in this compartment and God in this compartment. There’s no joy in living like that. It’s just dead legalism by another name, and it is a demonic trap intended to deprive us of life. Instead hear Jesus saying that every decision, every love, every loyalty becomes a complete and total commitment of ourselves to the ways and the will of a God who in Jesus made a complete and total commitment of Himself to us. 

Can you hear Jesus saying that, and then can you order your life accordingly?

I remember back years ago, when I worked with young people, many of whom were not “church broke,” I figured out that I had to come up with a way to get them not to embarrass Christ or the church when we would go out on our ministry activities. I knew that they wouldn’t buy into a bunch of do’s and don’ts, so I came up with just one rule. It was a question. I’d tell them, “Now, before you say or do anything, I want you to ask yourself the question, ‘Is this stupid?’ And if it is, don’t say it, don’t do it.”  

Looking back, I have to acknowledge how that wasn’t the most artful or elegant way to phrase such a question.  But you know what?  It worked.  Even with the wildest and most uninhibited teenager it worked, because in a weird sort of way, they found it to be liberating.

If I were to pose that question today, I’d do it differently.  I’d have them ask themselves the question, “Does this honor God?  Does this reflect the spirit of Christ?  Does this magnify the presence of His Spirit within me?  And if it does, then do it.  You give to God everything that belongs to Him, because it all belongs to Him.” 

This morning, that’s the question I pose to you.  And I invite you to take it with you when you leave this place and move out to the “real world,” where too many people have worked to divide their lives into far too many compartments.  

Answer it faithfully and you will discover that living into that one loyalty will be the most liberating and the most joyful and the most sensible thing you will ever do. 

What Are You Wearing?

When In Doubt, Dress Up

Show Some Respect | Doug Dortch | Sunday, October 8, 2017