Real Peace. Real People.

Mark 7:31-37 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him. 33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). 35 At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. 36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Only about one percent of the astounding ten million people who went through Ellis Island were detained, but it was enough. It was enough to cause great fear and undermine the hope that had put them onto ships in the first place. Thousands would wait in line every day to see a handful of doctors. Six seconds per eyelid was all the doctors had. Even less time to check for dangerous lesions of the skin or a fever of the body. Most people made it past the doctors. One percent didn’t. But it was enough to plant a vicious question mark into the heart of every immigrant who climbed off their ship and waited in line. Maybe their six seconds with the doctor would send them to America’s version of purgatory – quarantine.

That’s why Emma Lazarus wrote about the Statue of Liberty the way she did. She wrote, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Emma knew that not even Lady Liberty’s shining torch could manage to comfort the souls waiting in line. Emma was a fourth generation American who had personally worked the immigration process. She had seen tired faces lift as they were let into the country. She had also seen tired faces grow more tired as they were denied. And so when she wrote she offered hope to the healthy masses, but never to the sick individual. She shined a light for the teeming in state of general wellness, but never for the singular sick person person in particular. Because she couldn’t.

Mark on the other hand? I suppose you could just write off the introduction to his narrative as a boring travelogue. I suppose you could read, “Tyre, Sidon… the region of the Decapolis,” (v. 31) and you could let your eyes glaze over like you might when your friend comes back from a summer vacation with all his travel highlights. You know how that goes. You say the perfunctory, “Sounds like you had a nice little vacation, Jesus. Hope it was a nice getaway from those tough, religious people in Judea.” But then we’d miss the whole, amazing point. Mark’s just as uninterested with recording travel plans as we are with reading them. You know what he’s not uninterested with? Soul plans.

And here, specifically, he’s not uninterested with soul plans for spiritual immigrants. You have to understand how this story popped for ancient Roman readers. It’d be just like if suddenly you were reading along in your Bible and it suddenly and stunningly read, “Jesus traveled around the Carolinas and even stopped by Columbia.” That’s the effect that Mark’s after here. He wants spiritual immigrants, Romans, Gentiles (us!!!) to read along and think, “Incredible! Jesus visited the Roman Decapolis. Those are my people.” Mark wants us to know that Jesus is pointed at us.

Us. Not just the Gentiles in general or the Romans as an empire or South Carolina as a state, but also for the specific within the general. And for the people that make up the empire. And for the individuals who reside within the borders of this state. I’m not sure honestly what else Mark could’ve done to show that to us. He wrote, “After he (Jesus) took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers in the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue.” (v. 33) It’s just awesome, isn’t it? Jesus specifically pulls the man out and away from the crowd. And then Jesus makes what might be the most dramatic invasion of personal space in his entire ministry. He puts his fingers in the man’s ears. And as if that weren’t stunning enough behavior, he puts spit on the man’s tongue.

I’m telling you. If this man had a comfort zone of normal personal space, Jesus just obliterated it. This wasn’t just, “mi casa es su casa,” type of friendliness. This wasn’t just a man who was saying, “I’ll hang out with you and care about you.” This was something far more profound and incredible. This was a man who went where Q tips had only gone before. This was a man who literally pasted saliva into another man’s mouth. This wasn’t, “mi casa es su casa,” or, “I’ll be your friend and care about you,” type of behavior. This was Jesus invading the brokenness of the man’s ears and claiming it for himself. This was Jesus invading the man’s non-functioning tongue and claiming it for himself. The fingers and the spit were Jesus invading all of the man’s brokenness and claiming it as his own.

That’s what Mark so carefully and even minutely described for us. It’s not hard to understand why. Even though only one percent of the people were quarantined at Ellis Island, everyone wondered if they personally would be left on the outside looking in. Call it irrational. Call it silly, but we’re not robots. We’re souls. We understand that a pretty good bet is still only a bet and even good odds still leave someone the odd person out. Hope doesn’t matter unless its got its foundation under me. Faith isn’t secure unless the promises are mine. Angst can’t be replaced with confidence unless it’s got something better than favorable odds. That’s true even if the odds are ninety-nine to one.

And it’s especially true when it feels like the world’s deck is stacked against you. When you suffer. Because it sure feels like you got picked. Like you were pointedly removed from the healthy masses with cancer. Like you were taken aside from the prosperous general population with financial difficulty. Like you were cordoned off from region of the happy with depression or anxiety or an unwanted divorce. You’re not alone. Here’s a man who was forcibly emotionally stunted. He wanted to share. He wanted to give and take with others. But the life he experienced was as a soul trapped inside of its own body. He was shut off from the sound of another human’s voice. He simmered and marinated always and only in his own thoughts. He knew the great frustration of his constant uselessness and the sadness of seeing people write him off as worthlessly disabled.

And what made his suffering especially intense was its unchanging nature. Anybody can get through just about anything as long as the finish line is in sight, but this man? Neither he nor anybody else could change what he had. No amount of time with a speech pathologist and him mimicking the way she moved her mouth could make him form sounds correctly. And no amount of him trying to get himself to hear could make hearing happen. So there he was. Stuck with his own thoughts. Stuck with no hearing. Stuck with no speaking. Suffice it to say that if faith comes from sniffing life’s winds and deciphering the odds of whether God cares or not, it wasn’t going to happen for him.

And then Jesus climbs right over the walls of this man’s prison and breaks in. For the first time in his life, this man’s ears communicate something meaningful as they feel Jesus’ fingers. For the first time in his life, this man’s tongue feels like something other than lifeless as Jesus touches it. And then Jesus looks up to heaven and he groans. I know in English it says, “deep sigh,” (v. 34) but that’s honestly probably not the best translation. This word has a decidedly negative connotation. Sometimes it’s even translated something like, “grumble.” What Mark is communicating is a deep, deep feeling that you feel when you confront pain in yourself. Like the inner groaning that happens when you’re sad or depressed. Like a groan you might leak when you have labor pains or pick up something heavy and give yourself a hernia.

I wouldn’t spend so much time describing that deep sigh except that it’s clearly a key, key thought in this Scripture. It’s the only time Mark ever uses this word. In fact, it’s the only time we know where Jesus does anything like it. It’s a special, special saving moment. Because there is literally almost nothing more saving than that. There is nothing more important than for us to know that inside Jesus rose pure, unadulterated animosity not just for sin, but also for its effects. It bothers him. Sin’s effects in the man’s life crushed Jesus’ soul in a such a profound way that Jesus’ reaction was a guttural groan. That’s special. That’s faith generating. Jesus in this moment was owning and claiming this man’s suffering as his very own. Like it was actually his own pain and brokenness to deal with. And so he does, “(He) said to him, ‘Ephphatha!” (which means, ‘Be opened!’)” (v. 34)

And the results – well – they speak for themselves. “At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.” (v. 35) Now what’s amazing about these results is that they weren’t just confined to the man’s body. Not even close. This wasn’t just the restoration of the man’s hearing. Nor was it just the man gaining the ability to move his tongue around his mouth. This miracle was something far, far greater. Truly, it was. I’ve been a dad now for almost exactly three years. Three years in I’m still teaching Elliana how to form words. Three years in I’m still working with her to build vocabulary. Three years in I’m still helping her young mind create mental structures where she can put ideas and concepts and then bring them out as speech.

But this guy? This guy had probably never heard a word in his life. This guy had probably never spoken an intelligible word. And the very next moment he’s yammering away like a talk show host. Do you see what that means? Jesus didn’t just fix the mechanics of this guy’s ear canals. Jesus didn’t just better connect the nerves between the man’s tongue and brain. Jesus actually gave him the mental structures and thought content that would not only give him vocabulary, but also enable him to enunciate it. I’m telling you this was something far better and far greater than something you saw on the Matrix. It didn’t take a download. With just a word, Jesus unlocked not only the mechanics of the man’s body, but also unlocked the man’s mind. He was a prisoner no longer. Jesus had set him free.

But that wasn’t the greatest result of Jesus’ ephphatha. The greatest result of Jesus’ ephphatha to that man wasn’t that man at all. It’s the confidence that Jesus will do the same for you. If there’s anything that Mark’s trying to teach us with this story it’s that when Jesus sees the mess of sin he doesn’t space out with all of the overwhelming needs and say, “Boy, there’s just too many people and too many issues for me to deal with them all.” It’s anything, but that. It’s that he’s on the hunt to end my suffering forever. It’s that he’s an army of one and he’s on an invasion right onto the soil of my suffering. It’s that he will obliterate all my boundaries so he can own it with his entire soul.

What else explains the life path Jesus took? He didn’t just come close to us sinners saying, “mi casa es su casa.” He actually became one. He obliterated our personal boundaries to own and claim our sin for himself. By his cross he was saying, “Your sin is my sin. Your shame is my shame. Your guilt is my guilt.” And he died for it. And I’m telling you – actually Mark is – that it doesn’t end there. This Jesus not only hates sin in us enough to do that. He also hates sin’s effects. He’s got a vicious vendetta against them. Depression and blindness. Anxiety and death. Cancer and hardening of the arteries. This Jesus not only owns and deals with our sin. This Jesus also owns and deals with its every effect.

And strangely the way he does that is by speaking his ephphatha to us through suffering. Yes, he is that masterful. Yes, he is that sovereign. He has the power and grace to make suffering serve him by serving you. Think of it. This deaf-mute’s suffering provided Jesus an opportunity to deal with him personally. It sent the deaf-mute searching. It sent him yearning. It sent him looking. Mark even described what they did as, “begged.” (v. 32) But the word that Mark wrote next was probably the most telling. They, “begged Jesus.” (v. 32) That what Jesus was after. Faith. Jesus used suffering to put that man (and every sufferer) on a crash course to understanding his grace and power. To learn all in one amazing moment to trust Jesus’ power and grace to deal with sin and all of its dramatic effects.

That’s the gospel that Mark wants us to believe today. He waited in line at his own Ellis Island waiting to meet the doctor. And when his turn came, this is the Jesus he found. He found a Jesus who not only offered hope to the healthy masses, but especially to him the ill individual. He found a Jesus who not only shined a light for the teeming who were in a state of general wellness, but also for him the singular sin-sick person. Mark’s suffering set him on a crash course with Jesus’ perfect grace and power. Just as ours does for us. And, honestly, I can’t wait. Jesus is no ordinary doctor. He has this way of obliterating boundaries, owning sin and suffering that’s not his, and leaving behind only perfect healing. Just wait. You’ll see. Right now we’re in line on our Ellis Island waiting to see the doctor. And I’m telling you that when you meet him he’s going to speak his ultimate ephphatha over you, the immigrant. And then you’ll not only be home, you’ll also be free. Amen. 

Genesis 2:15, 3:17-20 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” 20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

They hurled a bomb at the police. It killed a police officer instantly and injured others. The police fought back. They fired into the crowd. Sound familiar? But this didn’t happen sometime earlier this year. It happened back in the late 1800’s. And it wasn’t a protest about race. It was a protest about work. The protesters wanted their employers to give them an 8-hour workday. Today it’s known as the Haymarket Affair. It became labor’s flashpoint and even gave the labor movement enough momentum to gain a national holiday. And this weekend we’re celebrating Labor Day. Work is complicated for us.

Even aside from the national holiday, our laws show this. 134 countries have laws setting the maximum work week. Not America. Germans take a federally mandated six weeks of annual vacation. We have no annual vacation mandated. And look at how this plays out. We generally work about six and half weeks more per year than British workers. I could keep spitting out statistics like this, but I don’t think I have to. We know that we work more than anybody else in the world. We also know that it’s not because we want to. In a recent Gallup poll 90% us - that’s nine out of every ten of us – is either “not engaged” with, or is, “actively disengaged,” from their jobs. In other words, 90% of us spend half of our waking lives being in places where we don’t want to be and doing things we don’t want to do.

Not to be trite about this, but I’m pretty sure that if work had an American Facebook page, it’s relationship status with the American worker would say, “It’s complicated.” What makes this important to us is that if there’s anything that’s most true about our work it’s that is personal. Incredibly, incredibly personal. Work uses our limited energy. Work wears on our limited minds. And now after the fall into sin, work uses our very limited time. It’s our very souls – their worth, their sacrifice, and their very occupation that we’re talking about here. It’s nothing less than that. That’s why it’s not surprising that as God sets out the foundational elements for everything we need to know about ourselves and him he talks about work.

Seriously, it’s that big a deal. The minute – no, the second after Moses described the paradise God had made for people he tells us what God wants people up to while they live there. “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (2:15) It’s interesting to think about that. No one these days snaps a selfie of themselves pounding out an Excel sheet. Or putting up a house. In fact, we might even think someone a bit masochistic if they posted on Instagram a pic of themselves digging a ditch or working fields. What you do find is people snappy selfies sitting under palm trees sipping Piña Coladas or posting on Instagram while lazing by the ocean. But the LORD God when he wants us to find meaning, have enjoyment, and be relaxed he doesn’t take us and put us under a palm tree and stick an umbrella in our drink. He hands us a hoe and says, “Enjoy.”

Now before you say, “Pastor, where does it say that we’re supposed to enjoy work? I get that we’re supposed to do work, but I don’t know about this fulfillment and satisfaction thing.” But that’s just it. This is chapter two of Genesis. This isn’t the chapter where God sticks us with chores. It’s the chapter where God is setting up the perfect life for us – the most fulfilling and perfect life in paradise anybody could ever have. How do I know this? Because that’s what Moses said. He literally said that the Lord God took the man and, “caused him to rest,” in the Garden. And, no, that isn’t Moses talking insanely and confusingly out of both sides of his mouth. This isn’t Moses saying, “God put him in the Garden to sip Piña Coladas and to work and take care of it.” This is Moses saying, “It is a part of the divine plan that we find fulfillment, satisfaction, meaning, dignity, and enjoyment in good employment.”

Now we sort of get this. Especially when work leaves. Lynn Joseph, a psychologist who wrote a book about job loss says, “It’s completely normal to feel panic after a job loss.” Then she goes even further saying, “In fact, it may feel like the rug has been pulled from under your career and your life.” What she’s saying is that job loss is far, far more than a financial loss. Job loss is something that tugs deeply at the the strings of the soul. And we also understand boredom and its devastating effects. We understand that if we’re really interested in punishing someone we don’t send them to a labor camp. We send them to its opposite. We send them to the hole. At some level we get the value of work.

But what Moses has done here is to take work and elevate it to a truly stratospheric level. He’s saying that work isn’t just a necessary evil. He’s saying work isn’t even a neutral player that we use to make money. In the plan of God, work is a central part of our existence and our thriving. It not only gives us something to do with our time. It not only is a gift that allows us to provide for ourselves and our families. It also is an essential part of how God puts satisfaction into our souls and blessing onto our minds. There is great fulfillment and profound enjoyment in hard work. So God placed us in the Garden of Eden, handed us a hoe and said, “Here ya go. Enjoy.”

And I’m sure that as long as that lasted, it was just awesome. Adam wasn’t spraying for bugs. He was pruning back apples trees that were just going crazy. Adam wasn’t dealing out the latest incarnation of Round Up. He was probably picking the latest round of cabbage and peppers and squash for his wife. I’m sure that as long as it lasted that Adam’s green thumb was more magical than Miracle Grow or Scott’s Turf Builder put together. But then everything changed. When Adam reached out his green thumb for that piece of forbidden fruit, he pulled back not only a piece of fruit but also a red-hand. Adam got caught in the act of sinning.

And that red-hand – well – the thumb it contained was no longer quite so green. “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (3:17-19) When Adam went from a green thumb to red-handed, work went from toil to painful toil. Harvesting amazing abundance went to pulling weeds and applying Round Up and somehow praying the bugs away. Enjoying the delightful work of tilling with a hoe went to chugging Gatorade in a desperate bid to stay hydrated. And spending an eternity enjoying the amazing production of the ground went to fighting the unforgiving, cursed ground for a few short decades only to return right back to it in death.

And why is this? Moses would have us know. “Because of you.” (v. 3:17) In fact, I see second person “you” kind of pronouns in this section not five times. Not ten times. I see second person “you” kind of pronouns in this section twelve times. If that’s not sticking an accusatory finger in our chests a dozen times, I don’t know what is. And let’s be clear that God here wants us to feel this finger in our chests also outside of gardening. What God is doing here is taking Adam’s main occupation and letting his sin infect it. Just as our sin infects ours. This isn’t only God giving turf guys a job. It’s also God allowing Excel spreadsheets to collapse, bosses to be grumpy and misguided, and machines – both bureaucratic and mechanical – to break. This isn’t God making it tough on farmers in particular. It’s God making it tough on workers in general.

And as crazy as it sounds that’s because God doesn’t want work to be regarded as only a past gift. Like it used to be good, but now it’s always and only bad and to be avoided as much as possible. God wants work regarded as our present gift and a huge part of his salvation plan for us. Even when the toil is painful. Even when the work is hard or unproductive or ineffective. Perhaps especially then. I know I may sound crazy, but it’s really true. That kind of work is meant to work on our souls too. Every day we have to chug a Gatorade or wake up tired and groggy and trudge off to another day of tiring work God is speaking his, “because of you,” into our souls. Every time Excel mangles the brain or the copier jams is another moment God preaches to us that we’re red-handed too.

And as crazy as it sounds that was a tremendous gift to Adam. Work worked on his soul. Truly, it did. Work began to work in Adam a deep and profound hope. It was a hope that he treasured so much – and it was a hope that he wanted to remember with almost perfect consistency. So that every time his sweat dripped off his nose, he would hope. So that every time, he pulled another weed, he would thrill. So that even as he breathed his last breath, he would believe. And he found his way, “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” (3:20) Adam named his wife LIFE. And let’s be clear. That’s not just because she would be the mother of us all. It’s not just because we all somehow bear her genetic thumbprint or her DNA signature.

You have to understand Moses. Really understand him. You have to understand he’s the king of the prophets. You have to understand his education level. This guy went to the Harvards, the Princetons, the best of the best schools of the Ancient Near East. This was guy who was raised in the cradle of literacy, Egypt, by Pharaoh’s daughter herself. And you have to notice how this highly intelligent, highly educated scholar set up this Scripture. It’s not just a fun fact that the very next Scripture after Adam hears the curse, Moses predicts that the curse will be repealed. It’s not just interesting to notice that the very next words after dust to dust are Eve to LIFE. You have to see this isn’t just about Eve being the mother of us all. You have to see that the prophet above all prophets is telling us that Eve would be the mother of true and forever LIFE.

Because cursed right along with the ground that day was the snake. He would be crushed. By a coming Son of Eve. Adam knew for him that meant life. And Adam couldn’t wait. He just couldn’t wait. He couldn’t even wait for his wife’s belly to swell in pregnancy for the first time. He couldn’t wait at all. He immediately named his wife, LIFE, or, Eve, the mother of all the living. Because every time he pulled a weed, he trusted in his heart that a time would come when he never would again. Because every time his sweat dripped, he believed the time for Gatorade would pass. Because even as his body grew old and close to death, he knew that he would once again live. Work worked on or reminded Adam to place his hope in the coming LIFE: Jesus.

Granted. Sometimes work just blesses. The alarm goes off and you pop out of bed ready and raring to dive into another day of work. Or you lace up those Sketchers or grab your heels, hop in the car, and get after that job. Sometimes God gives you a beautiful glimpse of how God originally intended work to be. You feel the dignity it gives. You sense the satisfaction, the fulfillment, and even the joy it can have. And sometimes you just can’t. Sometimes in your garden the weeds tangle everything up and the thorns grow crazy fast. Sometimes the boss makes you sweat or work place inefficiency badly frustrates you. Sometimes work even comes home with you and keeps you up at night. Sometimes work feels more like life’s scourge than anything that resembles a gift.

So, yeah, our personal relationship with work is complicated. Or maybe it really isn’t. Maybe when work is a blessing we revel in it and enjoy it and appreciate it and give thanks for it. And maybe when work bites we still do. Because maybe work works on our souls. Maybe work’s sweat is the perfect way to remember the saving sweat that leaked out of Jesus’ pores the night before he died. Maybe work’s thorns are the perfect way for us to remember the thorns that the Son of Eve didn’t just fight, but actually wore. Maybe the “erk” that’s now in work is the perfect way to help us remember that Jesus died for every one of our “erks.” And maybe that’s why the world over you find Christians embracing the BUSY?! of work. Maybe no matter what work works. Happy Labor Day, Peace Family! Amen.

Mark 1:35-39 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” 38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” 39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

“We have a family of five. It’s hectic. It’s holding the wheels on. We do what we have to do to be parents and be alive.” That’s how the taped conversation with Michael started. It started with a dose of the reality of day to day life. But just underneath that carefully described life was deep, deep yearning. And there was fear – deep, deep fear. It was almost palpable. “Lauren, my daughter, is 10. It feels like she’s going to be 16 tomorrow. I hope she doesn’t think I work too much or I don’t pay enough attention to her.” That’s what a dad named Michael said on a YouTube video that recently went viral.

It’s interesting, but not surprising to notice the metaphor that Michael used to describe his life. He said, “It’s holding the wheels on.” Who can’t relate to that? He doesn’t feel like he’s in the driver’s seat of his life. He doesn’t even feel like he’s in the passenger seat. He feels like he’s the mechanic underneath the car somehow trying to keep the wheels on. And it’s got him feeling deep fear. “I hope she doesn’t think I work too much or I don’t pay enough attention to her.” That’s why Michael’s video went viral because it tapped into a deep vein of angst that many of us feel.

Including Mark. You can just tell as Mark builds his story. With his writing, Mark is registering massive, massive surprise at finding someone in the driver’s seat of his life. And it’s not just Mark. It’s Peter too. You can’t miss that here. In fact, it’s almost certainly Peter’s surprise that informs Mark’s surprise. Most scholars think that Mark is reporting Peter’s eyewitness account with his Gospel. And you can just see that here. Peter’s all amped up because just yesterday he watched Jesus heal his mother-in-law. So up he pops groggy from a short night of sleep, but excited to watch Jesus work more miracles.

But Jesus is already up and out of the house. And Peter is flabbergasted. Again, you can just tell because Mark in his airtight and succinct writing style uses very rare terms to describe Jesus, the red-eye-riser. He says pointedly that Jesus got up, “Very early in the morning.” (v. 35) That’s just one word in Greek, but five in English because it’s a technical term for the time between three and six am. And as if that wasn’t a tight enough description for the timing of this Mark continues to nail down Jesus’ internal alarm clock with even more technical language. He says literally, “It was exceedingly night.” (v. 35) We obviously don’t talk like that ever, but I think we get Mark’s meaning. The sun was nowhere to be seen. It was dark as midnight when Jesus got up.

That’d be remarkable all by itself. It’s even more remarkable because it wasn’t, all by itself I mean. Just a couple verses earlier and a short night’s sleep ago, “The whole town (had) gathered at the door.” (v. 33) It’s understandable why they did. Jesus had preached at their church and driven out a demon. Then before he could take a power nap, he up and healed Peter’s wife’s mom. And the next thing Jesus knew they were banging down his door saying, “Jesus, heal my boy.” “Jesus, heal me too.” Finally, it must’ve ended and you can just picture zonked Jesus crawling into his bed, pulling up his covers, and knocking out. He had exhausted himself literally solving the world’s problems. And then he got up early and went off, “to a solitary place, where he prayed.” (v. 35)

Imagine how flabbergasted Peter must’ve been to find out that Jesus – all bright eyed and bushy tailed – was up and at’em at some incredibly early hour. But that wasn’t just it. No, it was more. This wasn’t a story about how the early bird gets the worm or a joke with the punchline, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Peter was flabbergasted at something else that was also right there in his face. Because lined up outside the door there were people. Real. Live. People. Definitely tens of them. Probably many more. There were people with infections and people with demons. There were people with excruciating pain and people in need of surgery. But there were no surgeons and there were no antibiotics. There was only Jesus.

Except he was gone off doing who knows what. And the pressure was on. People were beating down his door. So Peter organized a hunt. And, yes, I did choose that word specifically. Actually Mark did. Mark very specifically and very intentionally called it a hunt. And why? Because this wasn’t a search party. Not really. This wasn’t a friendly group of people looking lovingly and longingly for a lost person. This was a group of hostile people looking to get someone to perform for them. So Mark describes this not as a friendly search party, but as a hunting expedition.

And when they find him, they take their best shot at forcing themselves on him saying, “Everyone is looking for you!” (v. 37) It’s just such an interesting scene. They walk up and they see him worshipping. They must’ve. And they don’t stand quietly at a distance and allow him his time with the Father. And they don’t say, “Oh, sorry, we didn’t realize you were praying. Pardon our interruption.” Instead, they burst in on him. They intrude and they say, “Jesus, you’re messing up your schedule. You’ve got to get back to work. Everyone is looking for you.”

Now I suppose we could write off all these disciples off as tactless, thoughtless people. I suppose we could say about them, “Didn’t their mothers teach them any manners? Didn’t they understand that maybe he needed to get away and be with his Father for a minute?” I suppose we could explain their behavior that way, but if we did we’d be missing the key to this entire narrative. Because what’s happening here is a repetition of an old, old human story. There is a great tendency inside of us to let the urgent overwhelm the important. And deep down we know what a destructive force that can be in our lives.

That’s why that viral video that featured Michael and his daughter told the story about a girl who said, “Dance is a big part of my life. I took my first dance class when I was four.” And the camera pans in on her dad’s empty seat. And we watch Lauren’s mom text, “Where are you?” No answer. She calls and gets voicemail. We listen to her say to the people sitting around her, “Still no Michael. I called him at least 8 times.” And then as we watch the recital start we hear Lauren say out and over her dad’s empty seat, “I was given a chance to do this special dance today. Mom, Dad, this is for you.”

I have to be honest. When I watched that, I had a huge lump in my throat. Because I could feel the phantom buzz of a text in my pocket and I could hear the ding of an e-mail coming in. And I can remember frittering away my attention from the greater and higher calling known as my wife and daughter. And, no, Silicon Valley isn’t to blame. Neither is Apple or Facebook. I am. Ever since our parents prioritized that fruit over God, prioritizing our lives has become our living nightmare. Ice cream over exercise. TV over relationship. Texts over hugs. Work over life. Frantic busyness over quiet worship. Ourselves over God. And every so often we wake up to that sin with a massive lump in our throats and aching disappointment in our hearts.

And that’s why when Jesus looked up from his early morning worship and his red-eye prayers to see Peter and the gang with their prey cornered, Jesus refused to be cornered. Because Jesus didn’t come to perpetuate the vicious cycle of misplaced priorities. He came to end the cycle of misplaced priorities. And Jesus didn’t come to make victims more comfortable with their overscheduled lives. He came to end the victimization altogether. So he looks up from his prayers and he doesn’t even entertain their implicit question. He briskly replies, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also.” (v. 38) And that’s exactly what he did.

That’s the story that Peter told Mark decades later in the faraway city of Rome. And it’s the story that Mark is telling us today. So we could see Jesus the way he really was for us. He was a Jesus who at times burned the candle at both ends because he loved people and at other times got up and away before the mice were even stirring for time with his Father. He was a Jesus who gave in to the demands of the crowd on one night and on the very next morning confidently moved on. That’s the divinity that Peter spotted so clearly in Jesus that day.

And it awed him. And it stunned him. And it surprised him in the best of ways. Peter remembered it and he told Mark all about it decades later in remarkable detail. Forever would this day be etched into Peter’s heart. Because on this day Peter saw Jesus for who he really was: the first and only human being to truly live free. His schedule was never a mess. His priorities were always on point. Never was there a wasted moment for work or a frittered away opportunity for rest. Because he knew the times to say, “yes,” and the times to say, “no.” And inside of him was only a great tendency to let the important always overwhelm the urgent. And he knew the difference between could and ought.

And better yet, he didn’t just know the difference, he lived the difference. Not even the inertia of what was clearly a powerful movement in Capernaum could keep him tied down. He lived his mission. Did you catch what it was? To preach. He said, “That is why I have come.” (v. 38) What’s interesting for our purposes today is that neither Peter nor Mark thought it important to tell us the content of those those sermons. What’s interesting for our purposes today is that both Peter and Mark thought that the best sermon we could hear today is not an ancient spoken one, but an ancient lived one – the one we see right here.

You know why they thought that way? Because what we see here is so saving. And please don’t misunderstand me. Mark isn’t writing a saving, moral lesson here. This isn’t Peter and Mark coming to us and preaching, “Look at Jesus. Set your priorities like him.” Like Jesus here is primarily a model for early morning rising, prayer, and for focus on the Word and preaching. Don’t get me wrong. There are morals here, but this isn’t a moral lesson. This is a Gospel lesson. In other words, this sermon wasn’t captured for us to show us that now with the right teaching it can be flawlessly done.

It was captured for us here to show us that now it has been flawlessly done. It was captured to show us that Jesus marvelously kept all the morals embedded here. What we’re seeing here is Jesus coming and living free for us. This lived sermon is a gospel embodiment and it is screaming, “Your Christ in one twenty-four-hour period said, ‘yes,’ and, ‘no,’ right on cue and right on mission over and over and over again. And your Christ took that perfectly prioritized life, laid it down for you, and paid the debt of our frantic and sometimes harebrained life.”

Why do I talk this way? Because we will only live free if we believe we are. That’s how it works. If we’re unsure of our salvation, we’ll fritter away our time afraid of the judgment. If we feel guilt, a call for help may tug too powerfully and we may end up enabling. If we feel shame, we may overcompensate for absent parenting by absenting ourselves too much from work. We only live free when we believe that we really are. It’s only when I know I’m forgiven for checking out on Elliana and checking into my iPhone that I am free to do better. It’s only when I know God has spoken his, “yes,” to me in Christ that I want to speak a more powerful, “yes,” to his mission. It’s only when we believe we’re free that we’ll live free.

Free enough to choose the higher and the better. Free enough to take one important phone call, but leave an email of lesser importance alone. Free enough to say, “no,” to TV and, “yes,” to a meaningful conversation. Free enough to say, “no,” to another lazy hour in bed and, “yes,” to some time with the Word and with the Father. Free enough to choose a much needed workout over a lesser needed nap. Free enough revel in God’s gifts by riding your horse or walking your dog or playing a round of golf. Free enough to occasionally let the world pass right on by. Only believing that Jesus has freed us will free us to live the life where we’re BUSY?! speaking a, “no,” to life’s lesser priorities and a joyful, “yes,” to life’s higher ones.

In the YouTube video, Lauren walks out on that stage and she says, “I was given a chance to do this special dance today. Mom, Dad, this is for you.” Then she starts to dance as she looks out and over her dad’s empty seat. And then it happens. He doesn’t come frantically running in the back. He doesn’t slide awkwardly into his seat. He comes out onto the stage and he dances with her. And her face glows. Jesus and his lived sermon makes more moments like that. They take us out from underneath the car trying to keep the wheels on and put us firmly in life’s driver’s seat. Amen. 

Isaiah 30:12-17 Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, 13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. 14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.” 15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. 16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! 17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.”

Busyness is as American as apple pie or baseball. And to one extent or another we are all children of that culture. But I’m not really talking about calendar busy. Not really. I remember back to when I literally worked three jobs; was taking 20 credits at Seminary; and was trying to hold down a marriage. My calendar was full, but I wasn’t busy. Not really. I was exhausted and sometimes more like a zombie than a human being, but busy wasn’t really my feeling. I was just tired. Busy is something else. One writer put it like this, “Notice it generally isn’t people who work… in the I.C.U. who tell you how busy they are… It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed.” We voluntarily take on work and obligations. We choose sports for our kids. We take classes. We head to activities. And we do it because of what we believe busyness will do for our souls.

Or, sometimes we put a slight twist on it and we let busyness choose us. That’s the story that broke just last weekend. You probably heard about it or maybe even read the story. It was a scathing piece put out by the New York Times on Amazon’s work place culture. Here are few quotes from the article that has had people roiling all week, “The joke in the office was that when it came to work/life balance, work came first, life came second, and trying to find the balance came last.” Here’s a couple more: “Emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered.” And, “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.” One man said he “usually worked 85 or more hours a week and rarely took a vacation.”

No matter how you cut the busyness cake busyness it comes down to existence. It’s just that simple. Busyness is all about how we exist – if we are a significant existence to God and others OR if we are a significant existence to ourselves. Busyness is about existence. It always has been. It was back in Isaiah’s time too. Granted, they weren’t hanging their existence on something as flimsy as their schedules, but they were fighting for their very existence. They wanted to make sure that tomorrow they would still be alive. They wanted to ensure that their names and their families weren’t about to be swept off the face of the earth in a coming military campaign. So they got busy.

They went out as diplomats and envoys. They cultivated treaties. They bought off politicians – Egypt in particular. The world then wasn’t a whole lot different than the world now. Today you’ve got the Chinese, American, and Russian spheres of influence. And you sort of have to pick your horse. You’ve got the superpowers and you bet on one of them. And Judah made their bet. They picked Egypt. So they sent their envoys to Egypt. They cultivated protection from them and bought off their politicians. They were busy, busy, busy with their existence. As if it was up to them…

Now you might think God would approve of this. You might think he would say to them, “Way to go. Smart thinking. It’s a big, nasty, unpredictable world. I’m glad you’re busy trying to make a safe corner in it.” Or you might think he would say, “Thank you for your diligence and acting like grown-ups in this situation. I always appreciate initiative and hard work.” That’s the sort of performance review you might expect for their busyness. What they got instead was a God who reared up with disapproval. It’s almost like you can see him unfolding against the skyline like Godzilla might in New York. He’s big. He’s powerful. And he’s emphasized that way here when he’s called, “Holy One of Israel,” (v. 12)

And like I said, this was disapproval of their busyness. This isn’t just Godzilla rearing up against the skyline. This is Godzilla with his fists changing the way the skyline looks. Did you catch that when I read the Scripture earlier? These words in this section are some of the most brilliant, scathing, poetic, and powerful prophetic words you’ll come across in the Bible. And they are for the moment pure condemnation. Now what’s important for us to notice is what exactly the Holy One of Israel is condemning. It’s not just the money they took from their own people to send to Egypt and it’s not just the deceit they used to make that happen. Listen to what is actually condemned, “… relied on oppression and depended on deceit.” It’s not primarily the oppression that God condemns. It’s the reliance on it. It’s not chiefly the deceit that so upsets God.  Its their heart’s dependence on it.

And that’s just it. When it comes to busyness and what we’re up to, it’s never ultimately about what we do. It’s about why we do it. It’s about the motivation. And this – this right here – is where this Scripture meets our lives. With their busyness, the ancients were fighting for their existence. And with our busyness, we are too. Everybody admits this about our culture. Christians do. Seculars do. Everybody admits this about our culture. We are busy not because we have to be busy, but because we want to be busy. Here’s a quote from a secular article about this: “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

It’s interesting how Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, encouraged exactly that. In the aftermath of that New York Times article he wrote a memo to his entire company. It had these closing lines: “But hopefully, you don’t recognize the company described. Hopefully, you’re having fun working with a bunch of brilliant teammates, helping invent the future, and laughing along the way.” Did you catch it? With his closing words, he’s not really being an employer anymore. Not really. With his closing words, he’s really being a pastor. He wants to lead them to trust. He wants to lead them to hope. He wants to lead them to believe that through their busyness they are, “helping invent the future.” Because busyness whether it’s for Amazon or someone or something else, is never about the busyness. It’s about meaning. It’s about existence. It’s about what we trust in, rely on, and depend on to fill the void.

That’s why the cycle of busyness is so ingrained in us. Busyness is not just a time problem and it’s not just a scheduling problem. It’s a heart problem. If we slow down, we’re afraid we might have the time to find inside an uncomfortable amount of filth. If we slow down, we’re afraid that we may just have the time to come to grips with the insignificance we sense. If we slow down, we’re afraid we may just encounter a deep and awful void in our souls. So we strategically busy ourselves. That way we never have to look. We post on Facebook. We work crazy hours. We run to the next soccer camp or gymnastics class. We travel here and we’re in demand there. And we never step off the hamster wheel in our lives. We madly keep on keeping on.

Until God steps in and ends the madness. He does that powerfully and poetically here. This time God rears up again, but this time he rears up with even more authority and even more power than he did last time. Last time Isaiah simply said, “This is what the Holy One of Israel says.” (v. 12) But this time the tone gets louder and more insistent. It really is striking. Here’s the lead in that Isaiah uses this time, “This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel says.” (v. 15) That’s a whole lot of title. It’s longer and more powerful than the last one. Because this time he wants to be something bigger than a Godzilla tearing down skyline of our souls. This time he wants to loom even larger than he did when he condemned our busyness. This time his goal has expanded to something much greater. This time he doesn’t want to condemn busyness. He wants to replace busyness. This time he doesn’t want to frighten us away from busyness. He wants to woo us to rest from busyness.

And this his how he does it: “This is what the Sovereign Lord, The Holy One of Israel says, ‘In returning and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.’” (v. 15) In other words, “Judah, if you want national security, leave Egypt and return home. Stop the envoys. End the diplomacy. Don’t cultivate treaties. Stop the frantic attempt to protect your existence. End all busyness and rest. Then you will win. Right there in returning from all your activities you will find salvation. Right there in the midst of quietness and trust you will find strength.” Apparently, the Sovereign Lord is pretty intent in helping us understand what he wants from us. He uses four different and rare words to describe it. All four of them here are states of being. Just being. They’re not different states of busyness. They’re states of un-busyness. Returning (from activity). Rest. Quietness. Trust.

Those are the states of being that the Lord wants from us and that Isaiah is emphasizing. Tell me that’s not amazing and fascinating. Right there in quietness. Right there in the stillness. Right there in the midst of passivity and inactivity. Right there in the return from activity and at end of keeping on the keeping on. Right there is where God promises we’ll find it. Think about it. God is saying that right there in the place and the space we dreaded the most is where we’ll find salvation and strength. We thought that if we’d step off life’s hamster wheel that we’d find a void. We thought that if we’d stop the busyness we’d find only meaninglessness for ourselves. And then right there in the quietness; right there in the passivity; and right there in the inactivity we find salvation.

And that was the plan. God wanted to meet us at the end of our activity and after our frantic busyness. God wanted us to meet us after we gave up finding meaning for ourselves. God wanted to meet us staring down into the void of our sin. He wanted to meet us there so that we could know him the way he wants to be known. He doesn’t want us to know him as the God who will accept our meaning, our worth, or our activity. He wants to be known as the God who gives meaning and worth and activity to us. He doesn’t want to be known as the God who allows us to scratch and claw our way to a worthwhile life. He wants to be known as the God who bestows worthwhile life on us. In other words, God wants to be known as the God who busies himself so that we can rest. So says Isaiah, the prophet of the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

And so lived Jesus, the Christ of the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel. Because what God’s prophet said, he meant. Before we made a single move toward him or – for that matter – inside our mother’s womb… in burst of divine activity and busyness, Christ came and busied himself with God’s mission. He busied himself with clearing our plates and our calendars of ever dealing with sin or significance or security. That’s what his busyness with living and dying and rising was all about. He did those things so we could rest in those things. So we could sit relaxed in the armchair of his forgiveness. So we could exist – without any activity – as one of the most valuable and significant creations on earth – one of God’s own blood-bought saints. So we could rest with a secure future – not having to carve one out for ourselves.

That’s what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel wants us up to. God wants us busy with one thing and one thing alone: resting in him. And why wouldn’t we? If rest is our salvation. If quietness is our strength, then why wouldn’t we be busy with that? Why wouldn’t that be both our preoccupation and our occupation. Why wouldn’t we spend our valuable soul time finding our significance and our salvation and our security in what he did for us? Why wouldn’t we stop everything so that we can stare at EVERYTHING, our Jesus, our forgiveness and our Savior and our God. Why wouldn’t we just do what God’s prophet so obviously wants us to busy ourselves with doing? Returning. Rest. Quietness. And trust.

 That’s when we’re not victims of life’s hamster wheel anymore. We don’t have to send the kids to every athletic opportunity known to man. We don’t have to work ourselves to the bone for Amazon. Or, then again, we can if that serves God well. There’s so much freedom when it comes to our calendar, efforts, and schedule. And that’s the point of this sermon. Freedom. We weren’t free before. We were slaves to busyness – to creating our significance through it; to establishing our security with it; to ignoring our void by it. But now we have forgiveness for our busyness; significance that fills our inner void; and security in God’s love. These are the gifts of God’s busyness. Not ours. Let’s get busy resting in that. Amen.

Acts 24:22-27 Then Felix, who was well acquainted with the Way, adjourned the proceedings. “When Lysias the commander comes,” he said, “I will decide your case.” 23 He ordered the centurion to keep Paul under guard but to give him some freedom and permit his friends to take care of his needs. 24 Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. 25 As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.” 26 At the same time he was hoping that Paul would offer him a bribe, so he sent for him frequently and talked with him. 27 When two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus, but because Felix wanted to grant a favor to the Jews, he left Paul in prison.

In its most difficult scene, you can just feel the tension in the story of Snow White. She knows she shouldn’t, but she sees that apple. And yet it glints. And yet it pulls. She knows she shouldn’t and yet it calls to her. You can just feel that inner tension. And we watch it unleash and we watch her take that bite. Down she falls into a deathlike sleep undone by her untamable impulse. We watch it all happen in the story and we desperately hope it doesn’t happen to us in real life. Because deep down we know that self-control is one of those powers in life that’s absolutely vital. Its lack will destroy us. Its power will protect us. And that kind of power terrifies us.

It must. Snow White is not the only story in our American canon of literature like that. There are many more. I could talk about what Gollum represents in The Lord of the Rings series along with the horrifying pull of that ring. I could tell you about Maleficent the film that came out just last year. I could tell you it made ¾ of a billion dollars. I could tell you it wasn’t just the draw of Angelina Jolie that did that. I could tell you that really it’s the ongoing power of the story that called is Sleeping Beauty. That we know the curse of which its speaks and know the draw of that evil spindle and we fear it may just prick our finger too. I could say more to you about it, but I really don’t think I have to.

But Paul did to his audience. And why? Because Felix wasn’t haunted by those stories. He just didn’t really care where his impulses led him. We’re afraid to take a bite. He downs the whole apple. We’re scared to touch the spindle. He burns the whole thing down. This was a man who fully embraced every sexual feeling and indulged every impulse. If he was ticked off at somebody, he just offed them. If he wanted a woman, he just took her. Apparently, his newest flavor of the day, Drusilla, didn’t feel a whole lot differently. She was on her third marriage. And the world over knew why. Word must’ve gotten around like wildfire because to this day we still know the story.

One day Felix spotted her. History says that Drusilla was a very beautiful woman. And Felix thought to himself, “How can I steal her?” That’s how it went down. He spotted her, had an impulse, and didn’t deny it. He sent a servant to her saying, “I’ll make you happy.” When the servant arrived, she said, “Sounds great!” packed up and married Felix. Apparently, they must not have tried to cover it up or make the story go away. Their affair got to so many eyes and ears that it was even documented for all of history by a very well-known historian named Josephus. Clearly this was a couple who lived moment to moment, impulse to impulse, and feeling to feeling. And they didn’t care who knew about it.

And today’s flavor of the day was Paul. Paul had been sent to Felix after the Jews had just about blown up Jerusalem with hatred of him. So one day after they were bored with the food and were done for the day with the ocean and the sun of Caesarea, they thought, “What could be our next diversion?” And what popped into their heads was, “Let’s haul in the guy who’s promoting the next big idea. Let’s be a part of the hot new trend. Let’s hear from one of the big guns behind The Way. This should be kind of fun.” So they haul him in, but when they did suddenly all the fun vanished. Seriously just eight Greek words later Luke tells us that, “Felix was afraid.” (v. 25) And then he just shut down. It must’ve been quite the scene too because Luke got it down here for us verbatim. He said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.” (v. 25)

It took just eight words for Luke to cover the distance between fun and fear. And it took just three great concepts for him to cover the massive distance between diversion to devastation. Paul taught about, “righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come.” (v. 26) That’s what made the fun turn serious. That’s what moved the presentation from interesting diversion to devastating truth. That’s what moved Felix to feel deep and sudden fear. It only took a presentation on righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come. Just those three central topics.

And we get that as Christians. All too well. How can we not? We know why Snow White and her apple resonate. We get why the ring tugged at Gollum in such an unrelenting way. Because we sense there are powers working on our souls that can’t be boxed in or willed away. We sense that self-control is sometimes only an empty illusion. That sometimes the pull is just too strong. The spindle calls. The ring pulls. The apple glints. We’ve felt the tug of illicit desires and the tidal wave of feelings. For food or sex or power. For whatever it may be. And we fear. We fear that in the most critical of moments that our self-control may betray us and we’ll be lost. Just like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. And we’re right to fear that our self-control will betray us. Because it has before. Heated words haven’t always been checked; diabetes can beckon; and click bait on the computer sometimes has had our number. And we know what that’s going to look like in the harsh light of the coming judgment.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it would be far too easy for us to just throw Felix and Drusilla under the bus. It would far to easy for us to treat them like a tax write off in April and say, “Well, that’s too bad for Drusilla. She should’ve handled her impulses better.” Or, “Tough for Felix and his failures. Sure glad I wouldn’t have withered under Paul’s preaching.” But that’s just not true. The fundamental difference between us and them isn’t our inherent will power or our amazing over-the-top self-control. The fundamental difference between us and them isn’t even that we never fear God’s coming judgment. We sometimes do.

The fundamental difference is what happens when we do. Felix and Drusilla got scared and shut down and sent away the preacher. The fundamental difference between us and the duo of Felix and Drusilla is that we tell the preacher to stay. We even ask him to go back to where Paul started. We ask him to preach to us about “righteousness.” (v. 25) That’s the concept that Luke actually lists first and first for a reason. I know that when a lot of folks hear that word they think about how we’re to be upright and good. And so what they think Paul really did in this sermon is bravely hammer on Felix and Drusilla the whole time, but folks who think that #1 don’t know Paul and #2 don’t understand what Luke here calls the “faith of Christ Jesus.” (v. 24) More on that in a minute.

For now I want to talk just for a minute about what the best of the secular world is saying about self-control. A recent study done at the University of Illinois shows that actively exercising willpower and fighting temptation is actually counterproductive. One of the lead researchers by the name of Dr. Dolores Albarracín, “suggests that the relaxed state is better at inhibiting the pull of temptations.” Forbes Magazine also recently put out an article entitled The Six Secrets to Self-Control. Amongst things like eating well, exercising, and sleeping they told their readers to quiet themselves with mindfulness and to “forgive yourself… intense self hatred and disgust… leads to over-indulging in the offending behavior… don’t wallow in it.”

In other words, the best of secular thinking says that self-control doesn’t come from self-control. You can’t command it. You can’t personally grow it. And if you try, it’ll only backfire on you. They’re saying self-control comes from a place of soul rest. It comes when guilt and disgust and self-hatred is gone. It comes when you don’t wallow in it. And that’s really true. Before I wrote this sermon I asked my wife, “When can you imagine saying no to that extra cookie?” Her response was immediate. “When I know I’m ok. When I’m content.”

Exactly. The Spirit is way ahead of the scientific world. Why do you think that Paul connects righteousness to self-control in his talk? Because when righteousness takes its seat in you, it’s gift is self-control. Do you know what Paul means by righteousness here? It’s a pretty rare word here in Acts. It’s used just four times, but it isn’t in Paul’s letter to the Romans. There it’s used well over thirty times. It’s a heavily, heavily used word. And for Paul it has an abundantly clear meaning. If he explained it once, he explained it 800 times. The righteousness Paul preaches about always comes through faith in Jesus.

I’m telling you. Paul explained that word backwards and forwards, sideways and upside down. He talked about where it didn’t come from (us!). And also where it couldn’t come from (us again). He talked about where it did come from (Jesus!). And he talked about how it had to come from there (Jesus again!). In fact, even right here in this Scripture we find that truth embedded. This new movement that Paul was a lead spokesman for in its early days was simply called The Way. Because The Way said there was only one way to be right before God. The Way said that if God is going to bring down that gavel in the coming judgment and say, “Righteous,” then it would have to be Jesus’ flawless self-control and holy discipline that was held up to God. The Way said that righteousness becomes ours through faith in Jesus.

And that is the fundamental difference between us and the marriage duo of Felix and Drusilla. That’s it right there. We don’t say, “I – unlike those two – don’t wither under the Paul’s preaching of self-control.” We do. What makes us fundamentally different is that by faith we run Jesus. That’s why nobody here interrupted the sermon earlier like Felix may have and said, “Pastor Jonathan, that’s enough for now. We’ll call for you again when it’s convenient.” You all wanted me to go on. You wanted me to bring you back to righteousness. Think of it. When God inspects your life and he gives it the ultimate white glove treatment, he won’t find a single lapse in self-control. Not a single blot or stain to your record.  All he’ll see is Jesus’ perfect record. Jesus. Jesus. And only Jesus.

And that is the perfect breeding ground for self-control. Science is right that a relaxed state is best at inhibiting the pull of temptations. But the Spirit is way, way ahead of science. You know how? The Spirit actually delivers that state in the gospel. When our hearts truly rest in Jesus’ righteousness with everything that that means. When we believe that we don’t have to make up for guilt. When we believe that bygones aren’t just bygones, but that for all intents and purposes and in God’s record they never even happened. When we believe that God thinks that way about us and because of that fights for us and works for us. When we believe in the righteousness of Christ. That is the ultimate relaxed spiritual place and the perfect breeding ground for self-control.

Because when our eyes are filled with his cross, they’re not at the same moment going to rove the beach looking for the best bikini. When our emotions find rest in him, strong words that leap to our minds never see the light of day. When our hearts are filled with his joy, they’re not going to be thirsty for one too many drinks. When our hearts are soothed with the medicine of the gospel, we don’t have to soothe ourselves with an overwhelming rush of sugar. When Christ’s righteousness is the juggernaut of our lives and we say, “yes,” to it, the magic of saying, “no,” to anything not related to it really does happen. Self-control really is just that simple.

Yeah, sometimes the ring may still pull. And, yes, sometimes the spindle may call and the apple still glint. But we already know the end to our fairy tale. Only true love could break the curse of the unending sleep of death. So True Love came. He burst into the times and places of our lives where the apple had been bitten or the spindle had pricked and he forgave it and covered it with his righteousness. There’s a part of me that wants to say out loud what is said at the end of every fairy tale, but it’d be far too cheesy for me to do that. Jesus’ righteousness is going to deliver a future reality far too great and far too wonderful to try to capture it like that.

And now that that reality has taken its proper and central seat in our hearts, we can live. Not just with consciousness. Not just with awareness, but with Spirit led life and faith. We can love each other deeply. We can dance with joy. We can find peace in trouble. We can wait patiently for the promises. We can share divine kindness. And now today, we can find strength to leave the poisonous apple with his tempting shine alone by basking in the perfect glow of Jesus’ righteousness. Amen.

Matthew 25:14-30 “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. 15 To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. 17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’ 21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ 22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’ 23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ 24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ 26 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. 28 “ ‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

I buried my own grandpa a few years ago. After the committal an older gentleman hobbled up to me and shook my hand. He wasn’t there because he knew me or my family. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know a one of us. And yet he was there from halfway across the country. And why? He was a Marine. He had hidden in fox holes with my grandpa while bullets flew past and mortars fell around them. Their motto: semper fidelis – always faithful – had been tattooed onto their souls. So he hobbled up to me, shook my hand, and quietly said, “I fought with your grandpa.” Faithfulness. The higher the stakes the greater its importance.

And, yes, there are stakes. Not the kind you get from a cow, but the kind you might have in a business or a horse or a stock on Wall Street and also the kind rooted in eternity. Jesus is talking here about how faithfulness ties together both financial and eternal stakes. Maybe you caught the financial part already. When I was growing up, this parable was always called the Parable of the Talents. And if you know Greek that’s not a problem because you know that in Greek a talent is a unit of money, but in English a talent isn’t anything like that. It’s your gift set. It’s what you’re good at. And the editors of the NIV’s new translation are trying to move us away from that by renaming this story The Parable of the Bags of Gold.

And they were right to do it. Did you catch how Jesus started the story? He started the story by explicitly saying that the distribution of the bags was done, “each according to his ability.” (v. 15) The master divvies up resources according to a person’s ability to manage them. And then the story moves on. Yes, that does mean that we are to use our talents. That is being taught here, but the story isn’t primarily about that. This is a story about what we do with wealth.

And two guys in the story immediately invest. Big time too. They’re financial movers and financial shakers like traders from Goldman Sachs. There are huge profits and huge money getting thrown around here. The scholars say that each talent is worth about 23 years of a working person’s wages. If you want to figure out what that looks like to you, take your annual salary and multiply it by 23 and you’ll come out with a number like what Jesus is suggesting in the story. And that’s just one talent. If you’re the guy who received two talents, you’ve got a lifetime’s worth of wages to invest. And if you’re the guy who’s received five, you’ve got multiple lifetimes of wages to invest, which means we’re talking about significant amounts of what we’ve worked for.

So two out of the three immediately invest. The third guy, however, takes his talent – his twenty-three-years worth of wages – and does nothing with it. Well, truthfully, he does less than nothing with it. He sunk it right back into the earth. He, “dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.” (v. 18) There was no effort at all. He just sinks it back into this life and this world and lets it rot down here. You know how lazy that is? Back then if you had money you could always make money. Interest rates were crazy good. Sometimes they were reportedly up to 50%. Just put the money on deposit and pick it up later and you’d make crazy money. But the guy was too lazy and too selfish – or too faithless – even to bother doing that.

That’s how Jesus’ story unfolds. And already, you can see that it has a gorgeous, saving purpose. It immediately helps us understand that Jesus doesn’t see money or investments as necessary evils. Not even close. He sees them as brilliant resources and even makes the claim that he’s the giver and owner of them. But there’s more than that here. This isn’t Jesus just giving a seminar called A Healthy Perspective on Wealth. This story is exactly what I said it was a moment ago. It’s a part of God’s redemptive work in our lives. It has a saving purpose. And to understand that, we have to admit something uncomfortable about money. Money shows what’s really in us. What we faithfully invest in shows what’s inside us. In other words, we can follow the money right back to what we worship and what we value.

That explains the immediacy of what the first two guys do. They are just so excited to get after it. Their hearts believe in the Master and his cause. They believe in expanding his business empire. They value what he’s up to. And so they dig in. With some incredible results. Even back in the hay day of Apple’s stock you couldn’t ever get the sky high returns these guys were getting. They doubled the value of their portfolios. And when they’re called to account they are terribly, terribly excited about it. “Look, Master, I got you five more.” “Look, Master, I got you two more.” They’re just over-the-top excited about the success of their investments. And why? Was it because they were so excited about the piles of money they had made? No, it was because they were so enthralled by who they had made it for.

Of course, not everybody was so enthralled with him. The guy with the one talent comes back and just rips the Master as he explains why he buried the money. He said, “I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.” (v. 24) Do you see what Jesus is getting at? He saying, “It’s not about the money. It was never about the money.” How the money was used showed the servant’s heart. The servant buried the money because of what he believed about the Master. “You’re a hard man. You’re so hard that you even resort to robbery. You harvest what you don’t sow. You gather what you don’t scatter.” And not to hit this too hard, but I think we all understand what Jesus means when he talks about where this guy ends up. In outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So what are we supposed to do with these three people? Does Jesus want us to pigeon hole our level of faithfulness? Does he want us to say, “I think I’m the two talent guy”? Does he want us to be proud that, “I’m the five talent one”? Or, maybe be afraid thinking, “I might be the one talent guy”? What are we supposed to think and do with these three different people in the story? Does Jesus see us fitting neatly into one of his categories?

You know what the truth is? Jesus tells the story not because we always fit so neatly, but precisely because we don’t. The truth is that if we all fit consistently and neatly into these categories, then there’s no point in telling the story. We wouldn’t change or repent or move down the spectrum at all. It’s precisely because we’re on the spectrum and between the categories that makes this story so compelling for us. Because sometimes, we need a massive spiritual wake-up call. Sometimes we need to get shoved down the spectrum in repentance toward more faithfulness. That’s what the guy headed for outer darkness really is for us. He’s a wake-up call. We’re told about him to stop us from ever ending up like him.  

And let’s be abundantly clear about what Jesus is warning us about. He’s not saying we shouldn’t ever take a beach vacation again. He’s not saying we shouldn’t ever take the wife out for a decent dinner or build a nice house. This parable isn’t a condemnation of investing in today. What it is is a condemnation of only investing in today. What Jesus is saying is that if we only invest in this world we’re saying, “God, I think you’re a hard God. I don’t think your eternity or your kingdom or any of your plans are worth investing in. I’m burying my wealth down here.” And if we ever feel ourselves drifting toward that end of the spectrum, a nice long look at the end of this parable is just the ticket to sending our souls repenting and fleeing the other way.

How do I know Jesus meant the parable like that? Because Jesus didn’t tell this story to a mixed crowd. Jesus told this story to the believers. We know that because this story fits right into a bunch of other teaching that Jesus spoke, “when his disciples came up to him.” (24:1) Jesus told this story to his church – to the saved, to the holy, to the believers – call them whatever you want to call them. This story is for us. What that means is that this isn’t a story about how to be saved. It’s a story about what to do once you are. It’s about getting busy and faithfully investing in the team that God put you on. And, in particular, the end of the Jesus’ story is about making sure you stay that way. Because all you can do is run away from that ending.

And run toward the heart behind the story. Did you catch it beating there? Jesus was talking to us – his insiders, his disciples, the saved – and what really was on his heart here were the outsiders. What pressed on him were the folks who weren’t yet disciples; who hadn’t yet heard the gospel; the people who thought God was hard and bad and maybe even a robber. That’s the heart behind this story. This isn’t a guy who like me when heading out tells babysitter, “Elliana is asleep right now. Relax and enjoy. Here’s the remote and a TV dinner.” This is the Savior of the world who has a heart that says, “I’m heading out to make the ultimate sacrifice and the plan is that you make sure the story is told. Invest heavily in that work.” This story is nothing less than clear evidence of a divine heart that’s all caught up in grace and its delivery.

Just as the history around this story is too. You know what was going on here? Holy Week. And I point that out because when we think about how we’ve used our assets it can cause an awful lot of guilt. That’s why it’s important for me to point out that the Jesus who taught this was just days away from saving every soul he was currently teaching. The Jesus who taught this was literally hours from purifying his listeners from every time they had buried money including me and you. That’s not a hard-nosed God. That’s a grace-full God. And I think you know what I mean by that. I’m not calling God a ballerina. I’m calling God the one who saw us bury our resources and still went ahead and loved us with his whole self and poured out his blood so that we could have forgiveness.

And if you think about it, that’s the only thing that can explain the behavior of the first two people in the story. What else could explain their excitement over their investment gains? Are they that greedy? Are they only excited about bottom line? Or are they celebrating the winning of souls? And what else could have the Master dishing out glowing commendations for their faithful investments? Is the Master worse than a hedge fund worker on Wall Street? Is he popping the champagne corks because he’s now richer than ever before? Or is he just that passionate about reaching the lost? I’m pretty sure you know the answer to those questions.

My grandpa did too. I never realized it ‘til I thought this story through, but as I stood there by his grave there wasn’t just one shining example of what faithfulness accomplishes. There wasn’t just the Marine who shook my hand. There was the guy who had his hand shook. My grandpa invested thousands into a church home for my mom. I’ll bet it was at least one biblical talent that he stuck into it. And after he was done investing into a church for my mom, he invested in a Christian college for me. Thousands. And he was just a hard knock farmer. I stood there my hand being shaken as a Christian and a pastor in large part because of his faithfulness.

You know what else is true? I stand here today in large part because of yours. I can only imagine where that all leads for Peace and for the kingdom of God. But then, again, we don’t have to. Jesus made sure we’d know. He had us picture it twice in the story and twice for a reason. Where it all leads. The ending for us all. An ending that we know could only come from Jesus’ perfect cross-given forgiveness. An ending that makes the great declaration about us and starts the eternal beginning with this joyous shout coming from Jesus himself: “Well done! Faithful one! Come and share your Master’s happiness.” I would say I can’t wait, but apparently Jesus thinks I can. So wait I will. In the meantime, we get to be faithful to the Faithful One. The stakes couldn’t be higher or the gains any more glorious. Amen. 

Luke 10:25-37 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Granny Chen is what they call her now. The whole world watched her pick up little Yue Yue and cradle her as if she were her own grandchild. She was a street cleaner and one fateful day she found little Yue Yue’s broken, wounded body right there. On the street. The whole incident was caught on a closed-circuit camera and went viral on YouTube. Little Yue Yue, a two-year-old from China, quietly walked away from her distracted mother. She wandered onto a busy street and was almost immediately hit by a small van. Without getting out or caring at all, the driver inched forward, ran her over again, and drove away. Over the next seven minutes, little Yue Yue lay in the street crying out while 18 people walked right by and did nothing. Until Granny Chen found her.

It’s heartbreaking moments like that one that dig in and force very uncomfortable questions about humanity – ones we’d much rather not face like: What’s this story actually about? Is it a story about human triumph or human failure? Is it a story that more horrifies or more inspires? Is it a story about deep-seated indifference and callousness or deep-seated kindness and goodness? Which one is it? Apparently I’m not the only one asking those big questions as a result of this story. China as a nation is too. Just last year, the Huffington Post reported, “What became known as the ‘Little Yue Yue incident’ stirred up a wave of soul-searching and hand wringing among the Chinese and strengthened… conviction that China needs God’s grace.”[1]

These weren’t quite the questions our lawyer was asking though. Not yet. He thinking down a different track. In fact, he was so far down that track that he thought he was going to expose Jesus as a theological fraud. Luke lets us in on that when he wrote, “On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.” (v. 25) Apparently, our lawyer had a thing or two to teach Jesus about human kindness and goodness. The lawyer had a deep-seated belief that everybody is a Granny Chen just waiting to blossom. He believed people just had to be pushed to it. They just had to be told. And he was so convinced of this that he was willing to go after Jesus to prove his case.  

And make no mistake. The theological implications of this line of thinking are huge. They run all the way back to the most fundamental question there is: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (v. 25) Because finally this is a question about life. Not just consciousness. Not just awareness. Not just that kind of life. But LIFE. Life isn’t just being conscious or aware. Life is awareness with love and joy and peace and patience and now kindness. That’s life. Life isn’t bumbling around in meanness and sadness and hate. Life is vibrant love and soulful joy and meaningful kindness. This question of whether or not we’re really all Granny Chens waiting to blossom rises to the level of the highest question of all. Am I truly kind to all my neighbors? Do I deserve to live life with God forever?

And what if I’m not? That’s the question that began to eat at our lawyer. What if I’m not? The question hung for him in mid air and must’ve began to haunt him. We know that because Luke tells us the poor lawyer guy “wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (v. 29) I wonder if in the same moment that he pictured himself kindly bouncing his niece on his knee he also pictured that lady who he’d blown past so quickly on his way to work that he made her stumble. I wonder if at the same moment he thought about the lentil stew he delivered to his aunt he remembered the loaf of bread he carried right past the hungry guy on the corner. I wonder what helped him realize that he was skating on some pretty thin salvation ice. I wonder what exactly prompted him to ask, “And who is my neighbor?”  

At any rate, he asked. And Jesus answered. With a story that blew up everything the lawyer thought was true. It was quite the story. Jesus told a story that is simultaneously horrifying and inspiring. He told a story of mind-blowing callousness and incredibly compassion. He told a story of shameful disinterest and mesmerizing care. And it’s definitely R-rated. A guy gets brutally mugged. Jesus describes him as half-dead. It’s ugly stuff. This isn’t a case where somebody just takes your wallet and runs. It’s far more brutal and angry. The poor guy is stripped and shamed in front of the whole highway world. And then he’s beaten to within an inch of his life.

And then the crime gets compounded. Because the guy is forced to lay there in his own blood. No one would help. And the way Jesus tells it… It was our lawyer’s besties. His tribe. His people. His socio-economic and faith group. His BFF’s. It was his religious people – the people you’d think knew to help the most and best – who walk right on by. But then again they didn’t just walk right by, did they? They skirted it. So they could remain indifferent and the guy could be inhuman and faceless to them. So they wouldn’t be confronted with their callousness. So they wouldn’t see the life ebbing out of the guy as they walked right on by.

Jesus tells this heartbreaking story because it’s an honest picture of us. I wish it wasn’t. I wish this story had absolutely no basis in reality. I wish it didn’t strike a nerve. I wish it didn’t resonate. I wish it didn’t capture anything like what you can see on this planet. I wish that little Yue Yue was still alive. I wish that there didn’t have to be women’s shelters or jails or museums to slavery or to the Holocaust. I wish there weren’t courtrooms or police officers or a need for guns or wars or even for treaties. I wish that Jesus was off living in his own little world where a story like the Good Samaritan had absolutely no semblance to what I know and had no relationship to things as they really are. I wish that everybody was always kind and wonderful to everyone else.

You know what I wish even more than that? I wish I was. I wish that I was always and only transcending every cultural, political, national, and personal interest just to be kind to every other human being. I wish that every time I heard a cry for help or saw a tear of pain that my heart would leap within me and I’d rush to their aid not as if I had nothing better to do, but because I honestly had nothing better to do. I wish I had utter confidence that if you just cloned enough of me that every marriage would be full of compassion and every war would cease and every aged woman would be helped across the street and orphanages would empty and famines would cease and we’d all live in constant peace and security. I wish. But wishing doesn’t make it so.

And then into the story waltzes a miracle – an outsider. Somebody from a different place and made of different stuff. Somebody totally other. A Samaritan steps in. This was a person who lived off in the hills apart and away from the rest of the Jews. They were separated by blood and culture in deep and fundamental ways. And it’s this Samaritan who finally and completely pulls through. He bandaged up the victim using wine as an antiseptic and oil as a soothing agent. He put him on his own donkey; put him up on his own dime in a hotel; and then left him the next day giving almost incomprehensible kindness. He said to the innkeeper, “Charge me whatever is due (I’m totally willing to be taken advantage of!) and I’ll make sure it gets paid. Just take care of this man.” And that’s the story.

What do you think this story’s really about? Is it saying that kindness is basic to humans or is it saying it’s the gift of an outsider? Is this a story about human potential or human failure? Or, in other words, is this a story told by Jesus to inspire us to become the Good Samaritan or a story told to help us realize we need the Good Samaritan? Let me give you a clue. Christians have for a long, long time have dropped a pretty clear one. Strikingly, we’ve never called the story Being the Good Samaritan or even Becoming the Good Samaritan. We’ve always called it The Good Samaritan.

And it’s the for a reason. There is only one. There is only one whose goodness is so overwhelming. There is only one whose kindness is so compelling. There is only one who makes short work of every evil and whose kindness carries the day. It’s the one being who feels perfect and consistent Σπλαγχνίζομαι. That’s the word in the story that describes what the Good Samaritan felt when he saw the victim. It’s a word that in the New Testament is often translated compassion. When he saw the victim, he felt compassion – one of the most powerful feelings of all. It’s such a powerful feeling that it’s a feeling that comes straight from your gut – one of the deepest-seated feelings that anybody can ever feel. In fact, the word describes such a powerful feeling it’s just like a rare bird. It’s hardly every sighted in the New Testament.

And now here’s the kicker. This potent, overwhelming, pure, driving movement of the heart called compassion is always and only used for one person in the New Testament. It’s always and only used for Jesus. Because the Bible isn’t a story about people being inspired to be good and kind to everyone else. And the Bible isn’t a compilation of the best motivational speeches in history that will finally motivate us to be kind. It’s far better. It’s a story about God being good and kind to people who weren’t. It’s a compilation of stories of human callousness and divine kindness. It’s about Jesus and his gut level, powerful compassion for everybody on earth. Not just for the victim of a brutal mugging, but also for the those who walked around the mugging and for those who actually did the mugging. And not just for little Yue Yue, but also for the guy who ran her over and the people who ignored her. And not just for the women in the shelters, but also for the people who sent them there. And not just for those who endured the Holocaust, but also for those who caused it.

And not just for the victims of my indifference and my callousness, but also for me. And for you. Jesus’ compassion was so gut level, so powerful, and so pure that it drove him to the cross. It’s there on that tree that the kindness of God and the callousness of humanity met in a cosmic collision. It’s there on that tree man’s cruelty finally met its match – the infinite compassion of God. That’s what the story of the Good Samaritan is trying to help us do. It’s trying to help us find our proper place inside the story. We don’t rise high enough to be the perfect kindness character in the story. We’re the character in the story that is saved. We’re the part of the story that is caught up and overwhelmed in a divine kindness and compassion that’s so big that the story is properly and only named The Good Samaritan.

But then again, this was supposed to be a sermon about our kindness and here I got so wrapped up in Jesus’ kindness to us that I’ve totally neglected saying a word about ours. Or maybe, just maybe that’s where our kindness comes from – knowing Jesus’ kindness. Maybe, just maybe it’s getting all wrapped up in him – that makes us more like him. Maybe, just maybe knowing the kindness of Jesus is what makes us kind. Or maybe, it’s not a maybe.

You know what I think my favorite part of the story is? It’s what happened when the Good Samaritan first saw the half dead man. He didn’t do. He didn’t act. He felt. He felt a gut level driving compassion that could only be divine. You know how you get a heart that responds like that? There’s only one way. You see Jesus’ heart respond like that to you. It’s only by knowing divine kindness yourself that you can be divinely kind to somebody else. So that when you see them, you feel. You feel deep and gut level compassion. For the homeless lady you see at an intersection. For the sad soul sitting sitting in the cubicle across from you. For your tired wife at the end of a long week. Even for the kid who bullies your son. That’s the genius of Jesus’ story. It makes you kind without ever telling you to be kind. Because when you know The Good Samaritan, you also know you live eternally. And I do mean live. With vibrant love and soulful joy and a vibrant, meaningful kindness. Amen.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/06/china-religion_n_4860813.html

Genesis 15:1-5 After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” 2 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” 4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

 I told my twin brother earlier this week that I was going to be preaching about patience. I think it took him about two seconds flat to text a link my way obviously implying, “You’ve got to check it out.” It was www.patience-is-a-virtue.org/ Naturally, I clicked on the link. When I did, I sat there patiently watching a circle spin with a message saying, “Loading, please wait.” When my patience ran out five seconds later, I opened a different tab on my browser and got back to work. A few minutes later checked back in. This time the site said, “Thanks for your patience.” It was still spinning. I clicked over to another tab. When I checked back again it read, “This is taking longer than we thought, stand by.” Annoyed, I closed the tab and never returned.

That’s when it hit me. That’s was point. The site had revealed me. I’m impatient. There it is. My confession. And since I’m confessing, I might as well come out with the rest of it. The truth is that I’m probably worse than all of you put together. Just ask my wife. I quit Sprint when I moved to Aiken because when I want data I want data. I figure the only good lines and the only approved traffic jams I know of are non-existent ones. I daily celebrate this neat little trick I learned to getting the light to change quicker on the way out of my subdivision. And when I order a new smartphone, I have a vicious habit of checking FedEx’s website for a delivery status – oh – like a zillion times. I’m bad. Worse than all of you put together. Instant gratification is the only thing I’m patient with.

That’s why I’m thankful for Abram. He’s my brother in arms. Or, if you want to say it another way, he’s my brother in impatience. Granted. He was a lot more patient that I am. He had waited years. And years. About ten of them for his delivery. Can you imagine? I wonder how many times I hit the FedEx website when it’s a two-day delivery. I don’t even want to know. It’d be embarrassing. And that’s just two days. If I was Abram and God had a website where you could check the delivery status, I’m absolutely certain what would have happened to me after checking back over a period of ten years and the thing still reads, “Out on delivery.” I’d start saying to myself, “Not so sure about that one.”

What’s more troubling about this delivery is that it wasn’t just an iPhone. The promised delivery wasn’t just an upgraded camera or a faster processor or a better screen. Abram was waiting for the Deliverer out on delivery. Yeah, with a capital D on Deliverer. God had come to Abram about a decade earlier. He had told him, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (12:3) Abram didn’t have to do too much mental math to calculate that God was promising the Deliverer with a capital D through him and his wife. That’s the only way all people on earth could be blessed. And that’s what made it so troubling to Abram that when he checked God’s website it still said, “Out on delivery,” but there was never any delivery. The pregnancy never, ever came.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that Abram wasn’t waiting anymore. He was done waiting. He had checked the website too many times. He had waited too long. He was fairly convinced, “It’s just not going to happen.” And that explains God’s powerful approach to Abram. He comes to him in a vision, which maybe at first glance sounds sort of like the biblical normal. Like how God normally works in history. But it isn’t. In fact, this is the first time in all of Bible history it’s ever happened. Until now. Because Abram was in a bad, bad way. He needed to be told, “Do not be afraid, Abram.” (v. 1) Abram’s patience had run out.

And that’s a problem. A lack of patience is not anything to be patient with. Or to say it another way, impatience is definitely something to be impatient with. I’ve learned that even more clearly by being the dad of a two-year-old. When you’re two, you’re pure human. You’re not hiding under layers of adulthood. You’re not making valiant attempts at not showing emotional responses. You’re two. You’re just out there in front of everybody. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from that, I’ve learned that being impatient is never something to be patient with. Because impatience is like a tree, it always bears fruit.

Every so often Elliana’s little voice gets an edge when she wants something. “Dad, I want.” And I always know what comes next. Next comes the frustration. Next comes the anger, or, depending on the moment, sadness. Impatience is like a tree, it bears fruit. And the fruit it bears depends both on the circumstances and the individual’s temperament. If you’re a more aggressive personality, you’re more likely to become frustrated, pushy, feisty, or angry than you are fearful or sad. And if you’re a quieter personality, you’re more likely to become fearful, sad, or depressed than you are feisty or angry. It works that way whether you’re talking about the circumstances you’re in or the people you’re dealing with. That’s the soul killing fruit impatience grows. Impatience is never something to be patient with.

That’s why God wasn’t patient with it. And now, you’re probably already guessing what’s coming next. Because you know how impatience works. When your mom or dad lost patience with you – well – they blew their top. And when your football coach lost patience with you, you knew it all too well. That’s why it’s so surprising to hear what the Lord says when he loses his patience with Abram’s impatience. He said, “I am your shield, your very great reward.” (v. 1) Isn’t that comforting? When God lost his patience with Abram’s impatience, there were no thunderbolts from his eyeballs. There was no smoke pouring from his nostrils. And there was no deep voiced command, “Be patient, sinner. You’re on my schedule!” There was nothing of the sort. There was only a giving – a giving of his whole self. “Abram, I’m your shield, your protector. Abram, I’m your very great reward. I’m your everything.”

And that did it. That patience with Abram’s impatience was God’s way of becoming a lumberjack deep down in Abram’s heart. It was his way of getting in there and yelling, “Timber,” to Abram’s tree of impatience. It wasn’t exactly pretty as the tree came down, but come down it did. That’s what we’re seeing as words come flying out of Abram fast and furiously, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless?” (v. 2) And then – as if the Lord couldn’t wrap his mind around those words when Abram spoke them the first time – Abram hammered home his impatience in an even more pointed way. In the Hebrew it says, “Behold, you have given me no children.” (v. 3) So bold. So pointed. It’s almost like Abram stuck a finger in God’s chest and said, “You. You, God, have given me no children. And I’m plumb out of patience waiting. What are you going to do about it?”

That’s when the magic happened. The Lord reached out to heal Abram’s impatience. And he did it in the most unconventional of ways. He did nothing. Yet. I suppose that, yes, technically we could say that the Lord did something. He did, after all, speak. But he didn’t do what Abram was really asking him to do. Because it wasn’t time yet. He didn’t supernaturally in that moment allow Abram’s wife, Sara, to conceive. He didn’t reach down and bless Sara with a baby bump. He didn’t suddenly update the divine FedEx website from, “Out on delivery,” to, “Delivered.” The Lord healed Abram’s impatience with sounds and syllables, with words and with promises. He said, “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” (v. 2) The Lord just spoke. Or to be a bit more accurate, we should say he re-spoke a previously given promise. And he made that promise shine like it had never shone before. The Lord took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them… so shall your offspring be.” (v. 5)

So unconventional. So different. So divine. You’d think that if God wanted to end impatience in Abram that he’d have to send the baby. You’d think. You’d think the same for us. You’d think that whatever’s frustrating or terrifying or hurtful would have to end in our lives for us to find patience again. You’d think there’d have to be some action on God’s part. Some change. Anything. You’d think. But God’s gospel promises are so perfect and so compelling and so beautiful that whatever’s in your life – whether it’s dealing with circumstances or people or both – finds its proper place under the great reality God’s promising. Patience comes from hearing about that promised reality. That’s how it comes to us. Only the gospel empowers us to be patient.

That’s what God was up to in Abram. That’s why Abram was told to go outside. That’s why he was told to look up at the bright beauty of the stars. And not just to stare at the stars in mass. No. He wanted to overwhelm him in a specific way and with a specific strategy. He wanted to overwhelm him through counting individual bright star by individual bright star. He wanted him to grasp through counting the sheer magnitude of that incredible promise. He told him, “Count – if indeed you can.” (v. 5) Can you imagine what this must’ve been like as Abram stared up at that sky? Can you imagine him pointing his finger and counting to himself, “One, two, three…” his iris’ becoming pinpricks as they stare at the bright light? Can you imagine Abram saying to himself, “God, this many? God, this is what my descendants will be like?” Can you just imagine?

But then again, you really don’t have to. Because God isn’t about the stars in mass. God’s about individual star by individual star. He’s about you. That’s who Abram was counting. You. You are that future that made Abram’s heart beat faster and his eyes shine. You are what God has been up in history for a long, long time. God was gaining Abram’s patience and being patient himself for you. You were the plan. You were to be one of Abram’s many star-like heavenly descendants. Because you do shine. Not with your own intrinsic light. We’re far too impatient with people and circumstances for that to ever happen. We shine with Jesus’ reflected light. That’s why Abram had Isaac. And Isaac had Jacob. And why Jacob had Judah… so that on and down the line Mary could have Jesus. So that Jesus could make you shine with his righteousness and his holiness like a star. Forever.

That’s God’s promise to you. Re-given and re-spoken. God re-promises so that today again we can be patient with whatever and whomever we’ve got going on. That’s how it works. God gives us promises so compelling and so perfect and so beautiful that everything – people and circumstances – find their proper place under that great coming reality. That’s what patience is. It’s tranquility of the soul during difficulty or in dealing with difficult people. I suppose it’s rather obvious to point out, but patience is no longer necessary once those people or circumstances are gone. Patience only plays a role while they’re there. Its supposed to bridge that gap. And so when God gives patience he doesn’t necessarily need to take away the problem. What he does instead is re-give the promise about the problem.

You know what the icing on the cake is when it comes to patience? Patience is like a tree in your soul. It’s constantly bearing fruit. Christians have a long history of dealing spectacularly with the most difficult circumstances and the most problematic people. Not because they’re a particularly great people (Just ask them. They’re not!), but because they are people with particularly great promises. When I’m picturing perfection, I’m ok with watching a ridiculous website spit out stuff like, “Loading, please wait.” And when my soul is compelled by the promises, I’m not nearly as upset to wait another 30 seconds at the stoplight leaving my subdivision. And when I look toward the beauty of heaven, I’m not nearly as interested in the exact moment my new iPhone will hit my doorstep.

That’s why I’m thankful for Abram. He’s my brother in arms. Or, to say it another way, he’s my brother in patience. Oh – and for the record – the time came when Abram didn’t need to be patient anymore. God kept the promise. Abram was a hundred years old when the little guy was born. And patience bridged that gap. But it was just one. Just one of Abram’s star-like descendants was born. And you’re two. How many more will God make shine with faith? I’m not sure. For the record, I’ll just say this. The time is coming when our patience can end for good. The time is coming when there won’t be anymore circumstances or people to be patient with. When we’re home. When we’re shining with Jesus forever. Until then, it’s God’s way that we re-hear the promise and by the promise bridge that gap. Amen.

Psalm 46 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. 4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. 5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. 6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. 7 The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. 8 Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. 9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” 11 The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

“The sky is falling. The sky is falling. The sky is falling.” That’s what Chicken Little said. An acorn had dropped from a tree and bumped him on the head, but no one was going to convince him that the sky wasn’t falling. No one. Consumed by a mission to tell the king his tragic news he ran. He ran and ran and ran. He bumped into Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurkey along the way and told them, “I saw it with my own eyes, I heard it with my own ears, and part of it fell on my head! The sky is falling.” Utterly convinced they joined the mission too. When they reported their devastating news to Foxy Loxy. He immediately said, “Follow me,” promising to lead them to the king. And the story ends this way: “Foxy Loxy led them straight to his den, and they never saw the king to tell him that the sky is falling.”

It’s an interesting approach to finding peace when the acorns fall, isn’t it? Don’t be a Chicken Little. Tell off your fears. Command inner security. Believe that life events are nothing more than an acorn. I only wished it worked that way. I wish that children’s book could be the childhood booster shot for the spiritual immune system. And we spend the rest of our lives deciding away dread and killing off our anxiety. So that when an acorn falls we say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” And just like that our inner Chicken Little goes poof! I think we all wish finding inner peace was that easy. You don’t have to step too far into life to figure out it isn’t.

Or too far into into this Psalm either. God doesn’t see downplaying an event as an effective way to have soul peace. Because sometimes there really is trouble. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.” (v. 1) I think that’s so striking. When God helps us grapple with whatever acorns bumped us on the head this week, there’s no Chicken Little approach. He doesn’t tell us, “It’s not a big deal.” He doesn’t tell us, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” He tells us, “It is a big deal.” He says, “It’s such a big deal that I’m involved and I’m going to take it upon myself to be your refuge and pony up my strength to deal with it.” And why does he say that? Because sometimes there is honest to goodness trouble.

And it’s not only small or medium doses of trouble that God wants to deal with here. No, it’s not just that. He wants to deal with a big trouble – the kind where the sky really is falling. Or to switch metaphors to the more striking and biblical one: this trouble is not like watching the airy and far away sky come down. It’s far more disorienting. It’s far more troubling than that. It’s trouble where the very solid and formerly permanent, “earth gives way,” (v. 2) right under your feet. It’s trouble where you’re watching the “mountains fall into the heart of the sea.” (v. 2) That’s pretty bad. I think it’s safe to say that it couldn’t get any worse. We’re talking apocalyptic, world ending language here and nothing short of that. This is the ocean hammering away so diligently and powerfully that it takes out the most solid and most visually impressive topographical feature we know –  the mountains – and swallows them into the heart of the sea. That’s pretty bad.

Because sometimes it is. Scholars say that that’s what was going on for the Sons of Korah, the authors of this Psalm. The metaphorical mountains were crashing into the heart of the sea. They were in a situation where the most stalwart person would feel deep, instinctual and pulsing fear. They were in a situation that would make the soundest sleeper lay awake all night. Sennacherib’s general – who by the way had decimated everybody in the then known world –  was standing there. He was right outside the walls of their city. And he was shouting to them, “You will eat your own filth (although in the Bible he was a bit more colorful than that).”  

You know what Sons of Korah did about that? They sang. They sang God’s truth. Maybe you didn’t notice this before, but this Psalm is a song. It’s meant to be sung. It’s got refrains. It’s got verses. It’s supposed to be sung. To the soul. To the heart. To the emotions. Because while life beats at us like an ocean to a mountain we’re not robots. We feel. We think. We respond. When we’re sitting outside the ICU, it’s not enough to tell ourselves it’s just an acorn. When we get a break up text from the girl we thought we were going to marry, it’s not going to do us any good to tell ourselves not to be a Chicken Little. We need something higher. We need something better than self-talk. We need God talk.  

We need it badly. We have to understand something. Peace is not a choice for us. We don’t have the power to sit down in life and say to ourselves, “I have decided to have peace and, therefore, I now have it.” It doesn’t work that way. I’m telling you if it did we’d all decide to have peace all the time. But the truth is that we as humans are far too busted up by sin to make choices like that. Peace isn’t a choice. It’s a gift of the gospel. If you want proof of that, just remember what Paul said about peace. He put it in a list with love and joy and patience. He lumped it in there with a bunch of other gifts that he called the fruits of the Spirit. Not a fruit of the human soul. Peace is not from us. It’s a fruit from the Spirit. We don’t need better self-talk. We need God talk.

Spirit delivered God talk. God talk that shows the Lord as a go getter and aggressive and even militaristic. The Psalm says, “He makes wars cease… He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.” (v. 9) I love this! The Lord doesn’t just make war on our enemies. He ends war with our enemies. He doesn’t just shoot arrows back at those who shoot arrows at us. He breaks the bow that was formerly shooting. He doesn’t just blunt the attack of a spear with a shield. He shatters the spear before it can ever come our way. And he doesn’t just take out the enemy's offensive weapons. No, not just that. He takes out their defense too. He burns the shields with fire.

Tell me that’s not a powerful and militaristic scene. Clearly this is a God who isn’t interested in fighting fire with fire. Clearly this isn’t a God who is interested in continually locking horns with enemies or getting into everlasting sword duels. Clearly this is a God who is interested in something so much higher and better. Something divine. He’s not interested in winning wars. He’s interested in ending them. He’s not interested in firing back. He’s interested in stopping shots from ever coming. That’s our God. He wants to be known (Because he is!) as the God who is not on the war path. He wants to be known (Because he is!) as the God who is always and only paving the path to peace.

That’s something to get excited about. It’s enough to make you shout, “Lord, how can I get in on this? How can I help? Can I help pile the shields and make a bonfire with them somewhere? Lord, how can I help? I’m totally in.” And then bam! Right there in that moment the Lord bursts into the Psalm with his own voice - the only place in the entire Psalm where that happens. The only place that’s not a description of him or what he’s up to. It’s the Lord’s own voice that pipes in and tells us what he wants us to be up to. “Be still, and know that I am God.” (v. 10)

That’s what God cares enough to pipe up about. That’s the command to us. That’s what he wants done. Be still. Not surprisingly that’s another military term in a place with lots of other military terms. What is surprising is what God is telling us to do with it. The term refers to what might happen when you encounter an amazing combatant. If you’ve got a sword in your hand and you encounter someone like that - I’ve never experienced this before - your hands grow limp. You see your insignificance next to the combatant. You see your inability to do anything for or against him. And so what happens is that your hands grow limp and whatever weapon you’ve got in there goes clatter, clatter to the ground. Your jaw drops. You get still. And you let that amazing and overwhelming combatant do whatever it is that he’s going to do.

God wants us to know that he is that kind of combatant. He’s God. He’ll handle it. He’ll take care of it. He’ll get done what needs to get done. He wants for us to know that. He wants us to watch him. He wants our jaws on the ground. He wants us to believe his promise that he here pipes up to make. “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (v. 10) Pretty clear promise, isn’t it? “I personally will be held up before all people. I personally will be lifted up above the earth.” No matter how many national interests fight it. No matter how the earth spins against it. God will win. Even when life’s current moment isn’t a whole lot like singing Kumbuya and making s’mores. Even when it’s not constant and unending gumdrops and waterfalls. Even when God isn’t being a refuge from trouble, but rather is being a refuge in trouble. God will be exalted. And we are to be still. And watch. And wait.

Or better yet, strike the wait part. God was already lifted up over the nations. Literally. God was already exalted in the earth. Literally. God found his way. He found his way of not fighting fire with fire. He found his method of not getting into an everlasting sword duel. He found his way of not winning wars, but ending them all. His answer? He would be lifted up. He would be exalted on a cross. And there because peace was not our choice, God chose peace for us. He chose to forgive our sins. Not hold them against us. He chose to absorb our arrows. Not send them flying back. Christ is the proof that God secured our future and is fighting for our present.

What do you do with that? My best advice? Be still in your life. Let your hands hang limp and be amazed at God who fights for you in your life. The Sons of Korah did that. With 185,000 soldiers parked outside their city gates. With the world’s most powerful general shouting, “I’m going to make you eat your own filth.” You know what they did? They went to bed. They must’ve had unimaginable soul peace. They just went to bed. And this is what the Scripture reports happened, “When the people got up the next morning – there were all the dead bodies!” (2 Kings 19:35) They just went to bed. Without them ever picking up a spear. Without them ever swinging a sword. Without one iota of help, God ended the war.

Sometimes an acorn falls our head. And sometimes it’s more than that. Sometimes the most impressive topographical parts of our lives – our mountains – get submerged into a wild looking sea. Like when someone stands outside your gates and threatens. Like when you stand at a graveside. Like when you feel the deep sting of your conscience. Like when you sit outside the ICU. Like when you’re dark and lonely or heartsick. Like when you’re being sued or harassed or hurt. Sometimes it’s not just an acorn that falls on our heads. Sometimes there’s real trouble.

When it comes, self-talk won’t do. No amount of telling ourselves not to be a Chicken Little will make it so. No amount of raking ourselves about our nerves will bring us peace. Only God talk will help. Sing the psalm to your soul. Sing the psalm about the God who doesn’t win wars. He ends them. Sing the psalm about the God who doesn’t shoot arrows. He breaks bows. Sing the psalm about the God who bursts out with his own voice promising, “I will be exalted. I will win.” That’s when peace will come. Right there. Right then. Not away from trouble. Not apart from trouble. But right there. Right then. In trouble. Peace will visit your soul. When you’re still. When you know God is God. When you just watch and believe. Amen.

1 Peter 5:6-11 Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

“They sat there in a circle, their therapist, Nicole Archer, asking, ‘When you’re anxious, how does it feel?’ One young woman whispered, ‘I have a faster heart rate.’ Another said, ‘I feel panicky.’ Sweating. Ragged breathing. Insomnia.” That’s what Jan Hoffman reported about her visit to a therapy clinic at Central Florida University. She went there to attempt to get a grasp on a rising phenomenon in America today - the health crisis of anxiety. She went on in her article to cite some startling and troubling statistics. She reported that anxiety has now surpassed depression as the most common mental health diagnosis among college students. And she noted that nearly 1 in 6 college students have been diagnosed or treated for anxiety in the last twelve months. That’s a rate of 17% of the student population every, single year.

Of course, none this is dry academic interest that looks uncaringly at the lives of others in some laboratory. It’s anything but that. It’s what Peter calls, “your anxiety.” It’s having a list a mile long of present and future concerns that are yours. It’s the generalized sense that you get in your gut that something could go wrong at any moment. It’s anxiety that can come bunched and local, or general and ever-present. It’s the tenseness that comes after swirling fears take up residence in your heart. It’s the waves that roll over and emotionally squash you like a tank might - waves that can seem to have the power suffocate the life right out you. And it’s anxiety that has its roots in an idea that’s packed in our invisible suitcases – the idea that says, “God, you don’t care.”

And so because anxiety comes after us, Peter goes after anxiety. He goes after it as one of his first things by going after it last. We’re right here reading through the last things in his letter. Now you may say, “First things are first.” And there is a great deal of truth to that. Often in the Bible, you’ll find the most important matters first. But it’s also true that sometimes first things come last. Because that’s how communication worked back then. Peter’s letter would have been read out loud. They didn’t have copiers or Twitter accounts or Facebook pages to get a message out. They had reading out loud. And when you read something out loud sometimes the last things that are read are the things that stick the best. What I’m trying to point out is that when Peter wrote these words he wasn’t thinking to himself, “Oh, I better quick throw in my leftover thoughts. I suppose they need to get in here somewhere.” He would have been thinking to himself, “How can I make these truths memorable? How can I make them stick?” And we have his answer. Sometimes last things are first things. So Peter talks about anxiety last in his letter so that the message will be first in our minds.

He says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” (v. 7) There’s a whole lot to say about this incredible verse, but before I do that it’s important to notice where this kingly verse makes its throne. Because it’s going to help us understand our world. Just before this Peter wrote, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” (v. 6) Do you see the connection between the two? Sometimes God’s mighty hand in our lives can bring lowness. Sometimes a life situation can come along that can take you out like a Mack truck. Sometimes a big bill comes due. Sometimes your health goes down the drain. Sometimes somebody hurts you deeply. Sometimes - well - you fill-in-the-blank with your own experience. And when this happens God’s mighty hand can feel capricious or heavy or worse yet just plain gone. And what follows those kind of thoughts and feelings is a vicious case of anxiety.

I remember a time in my life like that. God’s hand felt heavy on me in a number of different ways. And then my dog got sick with cancer. So I owned the moment. I took it on. I warred through it. I’m not really talking about my responsibilities as an owner either. I’m talking about a deeper kind of ownership. I was owning the whole thing emotionally. I can see that now in retrospect. I did so much research on canine cancer that I’m pretty sure I knew more than the vet. I researched cancer diets for dogs and exercise and all that stuff. I knew everything science knew about the statistics of Callie’s survival and how cancer like hers normally behaved. Because I was owning the problem. Like I could actually fix her cancer. Like it was mine. Like I was Callie’s god.

That’s what anxiety really is when you think about it. Anxiety is me owning all responsibility and care for myself and my life. It’s me making myself my own god. And most of the time, we’re not doing this because we’re atheists. It’s not that we don’t believe God exists. It’s that deep down we are worried(Although we wouldn’t ever say it like this!) that God isn’t powerful enough to help. Or that he doesn’t care. It really is that simple when you think it through. Anxiety is saying, “God I’m not sure you can help, or maybe you don’t want to come through for me in this situation.” That’s what it boils down to. Because, honestly, if God can help and also actually wants to, what will we ever be afraid of? So instead of dealing with anxiety God’s way, we take ultimate responsibility by believing deep down that either A.) God isn’t good. Or, B.) God can’t help, which beliefs - if I may point out - go straight to the heart of faith and of the gospel and try to take a machete to them.

And Peter gets that. He’d felt anxiety’s sting and known its power. And before I dig deeper into what he tells us to do. I want to tell you what he did. He had to do it. He stared at his sick mother-in-law with a pit in his stomach. He knew the emotional pins and needles of wondering, “How is my career going to continue to provide for family?” He must’ve thought about that on the mornings when he sailed fishless off the Sea of Galilee. He knew the cold sweat that anxiety put on him as he sat around that fire during Jesus’ trial. And he knew what it was to think that a watery grave was minutes away when the Sea of Galilee turned into a massive sea monster. And you know what he learned to do in each of those situations? He turned to God’s Word and promises. He must’ve. That’s the only thing that can explain what he does here in his letter.

You know what he does? As he writes the Word, he believes and he quotes the Word. Because that is what we must do in life. We have to. It is God’s way to help us deal with anxiety. God gives us promises in his Word for a reason. We are to believe them. We are to use them. We are to bring them up in our mind’s eye over and over again. God’s promises aren’t treasures that we put under lock and key in our hearts and only handle with velvet gloves on Sunday mornings in a clean and holy setting. God’s promises are there and are meant to get hauled out especially in our darkest, messiest and muckiest situations. They are meant to be gotten out and flicked on even more often than our iPhones. And so that’s what Peter did when he was anxious. He dug out Psalm 55:23, put it on the tip of his brain, and deep into his heart and said to himself, “Cast your anxiety on the Lord and he will sustain you.” Peter’s not about to tell us to do anything he doesn’t do himself. So he quotes the Psalm here.

With a twist. With some additional understanding. By making it clear to us how big a promise this really is. Did you catch how he did that? He broadened it to be all encompassing and perfect. He said, “Cast all your anxiety.”  In fact, if you read the command as Peter originally wrote it the first word he uses is, “all,” which tells you a whole lot. God’s interest isn’t just in what we feel justified in feeling anxious about. God’s interest is thankfully so much greater. Because there is some anxiety that we see in ourselves and we say, “This is so silly and nit picky for me to get antsy about this. I just need to get over it.” But God still wants it. Whether we think its justifiable or not, whether the anxiety is explainable or not, God wants it. Peter is saying, “God wants every massive worry, and every nit picky little anxiety, he wants it all.”

That’s when the action comes. Peter tells us to cast them, which seems so Peter if you think about it. Peter the fisherman. Peter the guy who spent a good part of his life on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. You can almost see him throwing those nets in your mind’s eye. It sails out onto the water. It sinks down. It’s gone. It’s left in the depths of the seas. Every anxiety – all of them! – they’re cast. They’re gone. So aquatic. So perfect. So Peter. Cast and leave to God.

At least, that’s what I thought I’d find when I studied Peter’s idea of casting. But I learned something. Casting here is even better than I thought. It’s even more compelling and clearer than I knew before. While cast is a powerful action word, it’s not really emphasizing the cast itself. It’s emphasizing where it lands. It’s not really about the throwing so much as it is about what happens when the throwing is done. The word, “cast,” really is talking about a transfer of responsibility. When you cast, you transfer the final moral and legal responsibility to another party. Do you see what that means? It’s even better than what I thought before. It means that God not only wants us to toss our anxieties off of ourselves, he wants us assign them to him.

Transfer responsibility. Cast it. Let go and let God. Say it however you want to. We cast for a pure, perfect gospel reason. “Because he cares for you.” (v. 7) Don’t you just love that? Isn’t that just perfect? There’s no big long doctrinal treatise about anxiety and its effects. There’s no big huge presentation of in depth gospel here. Sometimes when waves of anxiety are rolling in, you just need it short and simple and clear. You just need to know he cares. You just need to know that it’s ok to let God take the reins and have the final say in your life. You just need to be told sometimes, “Hey worry wart (And I’m talking to myself as much as I am anyone else here today.), your anxiety is trying to tell you that God isn’t interested in your problems. That’s a big, fat, juicy lie. He cares about you.”

But you know what the best part of all is? This is a gospel reason with historical guts. This isn’t God being sentimental. It’s not him patting you on the head telling you, “Hey, it’s going to be ok. I care about you.” As nice as that sounds, this isn’t God trotting out nice, sugary statements that aren’t really true so we can live to see another day. This is a gospel reason with historical guts. Let me tell you about this God who says he cares. He has shown that he does. He didn’t sit in heaven and say, “Someday I’ll come down and make it all ok.” He did come down. He made it all ok. He came down into this chaos and sin and guilt and he made perfect sense of it with his cross. But he didn’t stop there. He got that truth into your life. He entered your world that before seemed so random and he guided and controlled and governed so that here in this moment I could tell you, “God came in Christ. He rescued you. You’re his now.” There’s nothing sentimental about this. This is gospel truth with historical guts. This God who says he cares has the resume, the power, and the compassion to do what he’s saying he will do. Care and act. Love and protect. Govern and help.

That’s why we can do what Peter’s telling us to do. To take every anxiety, every worry, and every concern and cast it. Cast it overhand. Cast it underhand. Cast it sidearm. I don’t care. Just throw it. Huck it. Pitch it – whatever term you want to use – just don’t carry it yourself. Transfer the responsibility to the one being who is supposed to have it: God. And then live life. Love others. Work hard. And let God be God. You can let him. He loves you more than you can ever imagine. Just take one look at Jesus and you can know that.

Do life that way. Because anxiety will come. Sit in that emergency room and cast. Take that exam for school and cast. Go to that job interview and cast. Stare at that empty checking account and cast. Think of your kids and cast. Feel a pang of the conscience and cast. Cast. Cast. Cast. Transfer all ultimate responsibility to him. Because he cares for you. Stop treating that promise like it’s only meant to be handled on Sunday mornings with velvet gloves. Get it out into your life. Get it out when its darkest and messiest and most awful. Put it on the tip of your brain and in the center of your heart. Do it. All day every day if you have to. God’s telling you to do it and you have every historical gospel reason to do it. We can cast. Because he cares for you. Amen.