Philemon
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 5, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
Seldom, if ever, do we read an entire book of the Bible in worship. Yet, today, we will read all of Paul’s Letter to Philemon. I have a few good reasons to read all of Philemon. First, at only 25 verses, Philemon is the shortest of Paul’s letters. In the original Greek, it’s only 335 words. Second, Paul addresses Philemon to a person rather than a congregation, which makes it unique in all of his letters.
This second reason leads me to a third, which is the real reason I wanted to read the whole thing in worship. This highly personal letter deals with a runaway slave, Onesimus, whom Paul wants Philemon, his master to receive back. The letter lets us see Paul in a different light. In Philemon, he uses a pastoral strategy to speak to a difficult situation. He uses persuasive language and enlists allies to speak to Philemon.
Some people find Philemon less than full in theology, but I find Paul’s message in this little letter very deep. In the first paragraph of his introduction to Philemon in The Message, Eugene H. Peterson plumbs this depth:
- Every movement we make in response to God has a ripple effect, touching family, neighbors, friends, community. Belief in God alters our language. Love of God affects daily relationships. Hope in God enters into our work. Also their opposites—unbelief, indifference, and despair. None of these movements and responses, beliefs and prayers, gestures and searches, can be confined to the soul. They spill out and make history. If they don’t, they are under suspicion of being fantasies at best, hypocrisies at worst.
This little letter let us see our faith at work. In your bulletin today, you received a copy of the Letter to Philemon from The Message: the Bible in Contemporary Language by Eugene Peterson, along with Peterson’s entire introduction. I would invite you to find this insert and follow along as I read this unusual letter.
1I, Paul, am a prisoner for the sake of Christ, here with my brother Timothy. I write this letter to you, Philemon, my good friend and companion in this work— 2also to our sister Apphia, to Archippus, a real trooper, and to the church that meets in your house. 3God’s best to you! Christ’s blessings on you!
4Every time your name comes up in my prayers, I say, “Oh, thank you, God!” 5I keep hearing of the love and faith you have for the Master Jesus, which brims over to other Christians. 6And I keep praying that this faith we hold in common keeps showing up in the good things we do, and that people recognize Christ in all of it. 7Friend, you have no idea how good your love makes me feel, doubly so when I see your hospitality to fellow believers.
8In line with all this I have a favor to ask of you. As Christ’s ambassador and now a prisoner for him, I wouldn’t hesitate to command this if I thought it necessary, 9but I’d rather make it a personal request.
10While here in jail, I’ve fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter—Onesimus! 11He was useless to you before; now he’s useful to both of us. 12I’m sending him back to you, but it feels like I’m cutting off my right arm in doing so. 13I wanted in the worst way to keep him here as your stand-in to help out while I’m in jail for the Message. 14But I didn’t want to do anything behind your back, make you do a good deed that you hadn’t willingly agreed to.
15Maybe it’s all for the best that you lost him for a while. You’re getting him back now for good— 16and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That’s what he was to me—he’ll be even more than that to you.
17So if you still consider me a comrade-in-arms, welcome him back as you would me. 18If he damaged anything or owes you anything, chalk it up to my account. 19This is my personal signature—Paul—and I stand behind it. (I don’t need to remind you, do I, that you owe your very life to me?) 20Do me this big favor, friend. You’ll be doing it for Christ, but it will also do my heart good.
21I know you well enough to know you will. You’ll probably go far beyond what I’ve written. 22And by the way, get a room ready for me. Because of your prayers, I fully expect to be your guest again.
23Epaphras, my cellmate in the cause of Christ, says hello. 24Also my coworkers Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke. 25All the best to you from the Master, Jesus Christ!
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Now, I have a pet peeve when it comes to Paul. It applies to any part of Scripture really. It comes from my education as an historian. Some young people and many people of a more liberal bent look at something Paul wrote and grumble about what he says or doesn’t say.
Listen: there may be a lot in Paul about which we may grumble, but we cannot assume our contemporary context is the only reference point from which to determine whether he has anything to say to us today. A lot of people complain about what Paul says about women, for instance, without really looking into what happened in Corinth and elsewhere or reading about how Paul considered some women his partners in ministry. Philemon affords another opportunity for people to find fault with Paul. “Why didn’t he denounce slavery as an institution?” they wonder. While they nitpick about what he doesn’t say, they fail to notice the radical statement he does make, which contains good news for us today, news that could transform both our worship and our workplace.
Of course, we come by our complaint about Paul, because we consider ourselves free and assume slavery no longer exists, at least in the United States of America. Yet, I assure you: Slavery still exists around the world. A recent bestseller, The Girl Who Played with Fire describes the trafficking in human beings, which exists even in a developed country like Sweden. Despite denunciation by some on the right of illegal immigration, we could not survive in this country without the work of folks, who risk everything to work here. I saw a movie once, a fantasy, A Day without a Mexican. It shows the chaos that would occur in California, if one day all the Mexicans, both legal and illegal, simply vanished. Wealthy parents had to take care of their own children. Restaurant owners had to wash their own dishes. Landowners saw fruit and vegetable crops rot in the fields without Mexicans to pick them.
No, slavery is not gone in our world. We may call it by different names, but it still exists, and please, don’t assume we are free. Something keeps us enslaved, as well. Call it the world; call it Madison Avenue; call it business as usual; whatever you call it, it conspires to make work into something less than “love made visible,” as Kahlil Gibran wrote. We call it the grind or the rat race, from which few of us are really fully free. It makes us feel as if our only worth is determined by what we do. It does violence to our bodies and spirits and makes us feel as if we’re stuck. It makes relationships into commodities to be exchanged, rather than people to be cherished as precious.
Yet, remember I said, “Paul makes a radical statement, which contains good news for us today, news that could transform both our worship and our workplace.” Listen to it again, as Peterson puts it in Philemon 15 and 16: “Maybe it’s all for the best that you lost him for a while. You’re getting him back now for good— and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That’s what he was to me—he’ll be even more than that to you”.
In one long sentence of only thirty-one words in Greek, Paul transforms the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus from one of slave and master to brothers in Christ and servants of the Lord. We hear it, but we don’t realize how radical it was then, to say, as the New Revised Standard Version translates these two verses: “Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”
I read these two verses from the New Revised Standard Version for those last eight words, “both in the flesh and in the Lord.” While I like Peterson, I prefer this translation to his paraphrase, “He’ll be even more than that to you.” “Both in the flesh and in the Lord” underscores what Peterson said in the paragraph from the introduction I read, “None of these movements and responses, beliefs and prayers, gestures and searches, can be confined to the soul. They spill out and make history. If they don’t, they are under suspicion of being fantasies at best, hypocrisies at worst.”
Too often, we make the language of faith vague and spiritual, in the worst and least accurate form of that word. Spiritual does not mean merely some division of life, as if you have worship here and the workaday world over there. You cannot keep Sunday from spilling over into Monday, because spiritual comes from the same word as “breath.” When we speak of spiritual, it means that which makes life come alive. When it comes to work, it means that which turns a career into a calling and rescues us from the slavery, which the rat race is. When it comes to worship, it makes every person in this place, more than another member to you and me. One hymn puts it perfectly,
Join hands, disciples of the faith, whate’er your race may be.
All children of the living God are surely kin to me.
Imagine what might happen in our places of work, if we saw each person as a child of God. I can only imagine it would make it more difficult to treat people as mere means to an end, as mere commodities to be exchanged, as mere tools by which we produce profit. I imagine work itself could become what Gibran imagined in The Prophet, when he wrote, “Work is love made visible.” Imagine what might happen in the marketplace, in the public square, if we saw one another as kin and not another kind.
Imagine what might happen in this place, if we lived out the dream of God of this joyful feast of the people of God as a portent of the day when “They will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God.” I can only imagine it would make it easier to see one another as precious in God’s sight. I imagine we would live out the dream God gave Paul in Galatians 3:27-28, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Imagine what might happen if we looked into each other’s eyes and saw Jesus. Imagine what might happen if we knew each other as sisters and brothers in Christ and servants of our Risen Lord, and really useful instruments of peace and justice in our world for him.
I want to change the next hymn, because as I finished the sermon, “The Servant Song” surfaced in my consciousness. You may find it as Hymn 2222 in Sing the Faith. It starts with these words,
Brother, sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant, too.
It captures a dream of God I have, an echo of the voice of God I heard in Philemon, the possibility of who we are in Christ.
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Luke 12: 32-40
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 9, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
On Friday night at Triennium, the Reverend Graham Baird suggested there are two kinds of folk: Those who play it safe and those who take risks.An article on the Presbyterian News Service described these two types:
- “Play it Safers” don’t hang out with unpopular kids, choose profitable careers, and marry people who will make them look good. “Risk-takers” hang out with those on the margins, choose careers that inspire them, and marry those they love.
Baird believes, “All the people who followed Jesus were great risk takers.”
Baird warned the youth: The world will try to get them to play it safe. He encouraged the youth to resist peer pressure and risk themselves for Christ. He prayed the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) would “become a risk-taking denomination.” He went to say, “These risks don’t need to come in our theology or in our doctrine, but in our lives. The reason we should risk is because Jesus risked for us. It is the risk worth taking.”
Right after he reached this point in the sermon, I received a text message from Drew Ludwig, Pastor at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. He wondered, “Are Presbyterians risk-takers?” Being a good Presbyterian, I wanted to point out to him the ban on texting during worship. Yet, I thought better of it and answered, “Yes, we are when we are our true to our tradition!”
Now, it may surprise you to hear Presbyterians are risk-takers. Yet, I’ll stand by my statement to Drew. The Confession of 1967 issues a clarion call to reconciliation in society. It states boldly that the search for peace “requires that the nations pursue fresh and responsible relations across every line of conflict, even at risk to national security, to reduce areas of strife and to broaden international understanding.” Our Book of Order echoes this language, “The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond themselves to the new reality in Christ.” From the very beginning, we have been at our best as a church, when we took risks in pursuit of the mission Christ gives us.
Yet, I know how far we fall from our best in our day. Wrapped up in concerns about declining membership and money, it’s easy for us to settle for least common denominator Christianity, in which we worry more about the bottom line than we do about “the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” We become “play it safers.” We pursue the popular people or, at least, those who look a lot like us. We encourage our children to choose profitable careers, rather than pursue a calling in which they offer themselves in service. We keep up appearances in our marriages and our family, rather than asking what it means to have a Christian home. We don’t take risks, because deep down, we are afraid, or at least anxious about what lies ahead of us.
Just before our passage today, Jesus teaches about anxiety. He concludes this teaching with Luke 12:32-34. Listen to how Peterson puts it in The Message:
- “Don’t be afraid of missing out. You’re my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself. Be generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can’t go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.”
Where do we want to be, when all is said and done? I don’t know about you, but I’d like to be in heaven. At the end, I’d like to find my way home, wouldn’t you? Yet, if we want to make it there, we have to begin living into the kingdom of heaven on earth. We need to take risks to realize this world and all it offers, while wonderful at times, is not all there is, not by a long shot.
When I read this passage back in the spring, I heard drums in my head. They were the drums of an African-American Spiritual, arranged by André Thomas. They sound like the tell tale heart of hope until the choir sings the refrain:
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
The time is drawing nigh.
The spiritual sings the truth Jesus says in Luke 12:35-38. Listen to these verses again as Peterson puts them in The Message:
- “Keep your shirts on; keep the lights on! Be like house servants waiting for their master to come back from his honeymoon, awake and ready to open the door when he arrives and knocks. Lucky the servants whom the master finds on watch! He’ll put on an apron, sit them at the table, and serve them a meal, sharing his wedding feast with them. It doesn’t matter what time of the night he arrives; they’re awake—and so blessed!”
Jesus calls us to something more than anxiety about what will happen next. He calls us to anticipation of what will occur when he returns. He calls us to awareness any moment may be the moment. He reminds us the veil that separates this world from the next may be paper thin and the only way to be ready for the end is to live ready for it. It’s like the first verse of the old spiritual says,
Children, don’t get weary,
Children, don’t get weary,
Children, don’t get weary,
‘Til your work is done.
It reminds us of Luke 12: 39-40, which Peterson renders,
- “You know that if the house owner had known what night the burglar was coming, he wouldn’t have stayed out late and left the place unlocked. So don’t you be slovenly and careless. Just when you don’t expect him, the Son of Man will show up.”
It may seem a little weird, but one of my favorite prayers in the Book of Common Worship may be the Prayer of Confession for Advent. My favorite sentence in that prayer says, “We confess that we have not expected your kingdom, for we live casual lives, ignoring your promised judgment.” “For we live casual lives…” I cannot think of a more accurate description of Christ’s church today, of our denomination, and of this congregation. We live casual lives, unaware that we are kingdom bound, ignorant that God will judge us and may be judging us even now. Here and now, we need to take risks and not play it safe.
In her book, Journey to the Heart, Melody Beattie issues a gentle call for living into the kingdom, here and now:
- Respect life. All of it. The world moves so fast, it’s so easy to forget to respect all that lives, all that is. We get so harried, so hurried, we take life for granted. Take time to remember that all life is sacred. All that is part of creation is a creation, and the same life force moves through us all. With all its trials, tests, worries, heartaches, and sometimes heartbreaks, life is a gift.
- A few short years on this planet, then we are gone. Do not spend it worrying about all that has gone wrong. You will miss the lesson. You will miss the gift, the gift of life.
It’s like the old spiritual says,
Christian journey soon be over,
Christian journey soon be over,
Christian journey soon be over,
The time is drawing nigh.
So, “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
The time is drawing nigh.”
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
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Luke 10:25-37
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 11, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
Before we hear the Second Reading, I want to reread the last verse of the First Reading, “No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” Moses speaks these words near the end of his life. Throughout Deuteronomy, he reviews all God has done for Israel and reminds them of the faithful response God expects. He invites them in the rest of chapter thirty to make a simple choice between life and death. He encourages them to choose life.
Yet, ever since Moses delivered God’s commandments from Sinai, we’ve tried to determine what exactly the Lord meant and to find the loopholes wherever we can. In our Second Reading, a lawyer, really a biblical scholar comes to Jesus, wanting to know how to inherit eternal life. Jesus answers by asking him a question, which the man answers well. Yet, it doesn’t satisfy him, so he asks another question. I will read from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, because most of us know this passage well, maybe even too well. I hope Peterson’s paraphrase will breathe new life into this old, old story.
Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”
He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”
He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”
“Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”
Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”
Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.
“A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’
“What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”
“The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.
Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”
While he described himself variously as a freethinker, a humanist, a Unitarian/Universalist, an agnostic, even an atheist, the late American writer, Kurt Vonnegut grasped what lies at the core of what our faith teaches. A young man from Pittsburgh asked him, “Please tell me it will be okay!” Vonnegut answered, “Welcome to earth, young man! It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, Joe, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of: Goldarn it, Joe, you’ve got to be kind.” Of course, Vonnegut used another word with which I didn’t feel at ease. However, I think he’s right about the only one rule thing: “You’ve got to be kind.”
When I graduated from Princeton, one of my preaching heroes, Frederick Buechner told a story about another great American writer, Henry James. When he said goodbye once to his young nephew Billy, he said something the boy always remembered: “There are three things that are important in human life. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.”
Now, I know what you wonder, because I wondered the same thing, when I read Vonnegut’s advice and remembered James’s counsel. When must one be kind? What constitutes kindness? Where does one practice kindness? Maybe, most importantly, who ought to receive my kindness?
Like the religion scholar in Jesus’ story, we know all the answers or, at least, we think we do! Yet, we want to see when Jesus would practice kindness, what he thinks it is, where he believes we should be kind, and of course, most importantly, who deserves our kindness. Like the religion scholar, we could rattle off the greatest commandment, which combines a verse from Deuteronomy and a verse from Leviticus to create a perfect summary of everything God taught Israel during their wilderness wanderings. When you think about it, it’s what all of us learned in Sunday School, isn’t it? “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” It might take a little coaching, but most of us could get it out. Moses was right: “No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.”
Yet, why do we continue to look for the loopholes? Why do we complicate what appears to be as clear as the nose on our face? Why do we ask the question, which only reveals how closed our hearts are to the word, how silent we can be when we should speak, how far we are from really, fully knowing what God really, truly said? “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”
Listen, I don’t feel much like retelling the parable of the Good Samaritan. You don’t need me to tell you what it says, because again, it’s pretty clear: Two very religious people walk by. Perhaps, the priest feared touching a dead body for fear of contamination, but I think it was an excuse. In all likelihood, the Levite feared that it might be a trap, but it doesn’t really matter. Both of them, good religious folk, did nothing to help their neighbor. The word was very near to them, screaming out from the nearly lifeless body, saying, “Be kind. Be kind. Be kind.” And they closed their ears and their hearts and kept on walking.
You don’t need me to tell you about the Samaritans, how much Jews hated them and how mutual the feeling was. Yet, what we need to grasp is that the Samaritan got the essential tenet of Christianity, in fact, a core belief of Judaism, Islam, and many other religions: “You’ve got to be kind.” Even those who will have nothing to do with organized religion, believe this article of faith at some level.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, because I thought it too. How can we afford to be kind in a world where so many cruel things occur? How can we consider showing kindness to people who hurt us? Aren’t you being naïve? Well, no, I’m not being naïve. Your questions are not for me to answer. You may address them to the same person to whom I addressed the same questions as I wrote this sermon. I’ll tell you the same thing he told me. “No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. You can hear it in the cries of the man on the road. You can see it in the kindness shown by one whose only belief might be the basic faith of all humankind. My Father placed it deep within your hearts. It’s on the tip of your tongue. You know the truth. I know it’s hard, because it broke me, but trust me, it’s the only way to live a fully human life. You’ve got to be kind…be kind… be kind…be kind…”
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Hebrews 11:8-16
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 4, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
The 28th President of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson was the last of eight presidents from Virginia. I learned that fact in Virginia History, which was required in Seventh Grade when I grew up in that state. Later, I learned Wilson grew up in a Presbyterian manse. His father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson served as pastor in Staunton, Virginia.
So, it comes as no surprise to find a prayer by Wilson in our Book of Common Worship. “A Prayer for our Nation” begins in a very Presbyterian way. It acknowledges God’s sovereignty, “Almighty God, ruler of all the peoples of the earth.” It continues with a confession, “Forgive, we pray, our shortcomings as a nation.” Then, it prays for America’s leaders and her people, “Give wisdom to our counselors and steadfastness to our people.” It concludes by taking the long view, “And bring us at last to the fair city of peace, whose foundations are mercy, justice, and goodwill, and whose builder and maker you are.”
Wilson was not the first of our nation’s leaders to take “the long view.” In hot and humid Philadelphia in the summer of 1776, Thomas Jefferson took the long view when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Most of the signers took the long view, as they promised, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
Another hot and humid summer, in 1963, in Washington, D.C. the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. took the long view as he looked out from the Lincoln Memorial. He shared a dream, “deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” You’ve heard his word, punctuated by the chorus, “I have a dream…” And remember, o remember well, how Dr. King ended,
- With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning—“my country ’tis of thee; sweet land of liberty; of thee I sing; land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride; from every mountain side, let freedom ring”—and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
Yet, Dr. King had another dream, a vision. Shortly before his death in 1968, he preached at Mason Temple in Memphis. Somehow, he knew what lay ahead and he said, “I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the Promised Land.” When Thomas Jefferson penned his famous words and the signers of the Declaration of Independence, it was far from certain whether they would succeed. I read a book by David McCullough, 1776, which suggest things went from bad to worse through that famous year.
In the musical 1776, General George Washington never appears on stage, but he sends reports to the Continental Congress, which leads one member to say, “Och, the man would depress a hyena.” One of my favorite scenes in the musical begins with Mr. Thompson, the clerk of the meeting, reading one of these letters. He sings,
“I have been in anticipation of receiving a reply
In response to my last fifteen dispatches.
Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody care?
It moves John Adams, played by William Daniels in the original stage production and the movie, to sing,
“Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?
I see fireworks, I see the pageant and pomp and parade,
I hear the bells ringing out, I hear the cannons roar,
I see Americans – all Americans, free, forever more.
Nowadays, it’s easy to wonder, “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?” We live in a time when the dreams of people like Jefferson, Adams, and King seem deferred and long since exploded. We see the worst of what comes from the lack of commitment to a common vision of what America may be as we listen to the endless debate in Washington, on the airwaves, over the internet, which seem to celebrate the individual’s rights, rather than the public good. Yet, as citizens and as Christians, we cannot surrender the dream of those who’ve gone before us. We cannot submit to the cynicism so many seem to have. We cannot succumb to the incivility in which so many participate under the guise of practicing freedom of speech.
In the movie, National Treasure, treasure hunter, Benjamin Gates and his sidekick, Riley Poole stand before the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives. Gates says, “Of all the ideas that became the United States there’s a line here that stands at the heart of all the others.” He reads from the faded, fragile document that forms the framework of our freedom, “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” Then, he says with some sadness, “People don’t talk that way anymore.”
Perhaps, people don’t talk that way anymore. Maybe, many people in our country prefer sound bites and slogans. It could be some accept cynicism and incivility as part of our national life. Yet, you and I cannot join them, because we come from a long line of people who took the long view, like Woodrow Wilson. In his prayer, did you hear an echo of what we read in Hebrews 11:10? Remember how the author said of Abraham, “For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” As Christians, you and I follow in the footsteps of forebears who died in faith, but did not make it to the Promised Land. Yet, they saw it from afar and welcomed it. Like them, we live as “strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.” As Christians, we follow them and “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” We live in hope that that God will not be ashamed to be called our God and we will enter a city God prepares for them.
As citizens, we need to talk in this way. As we journey towards Wilson’s “fair city of peace, whose foundations are mercy, justice, and goodwill,” we need to work to make this “a better country” as we pray that God’s kingdom will come on earth as in heaven. We need to hold our nation to the vision of all who took the long view and never gave up hope. We need to live, as one of our chief ends proclaims, as “the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.” As we come to this table today, let us commit ourselves anew to make America become a place where all may come and sit at the welcome table!
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Luke 9:51-62
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 27, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
As I said last Sunday, my Dad grew up in the rural South, North Carolina, to be precise, during the Thirties and Forties. When Dad was only a child, his father died. After a while, his mother moved to Washington, D.C. to find work. Along with his sisters and brothers, he went to live on his grandparents’ farm, which I visited a few times on our way to Myrtle Beach as a child.
My dad and his brothers and sisters worked the farm and, as I found out, their grandfather hired them out to surrounding farms. In those days, when you plowed a field, you didn’t use a tractor. Instead, you used a mule, or a team of mules. Now, mules may be among the most ornery creatures ever made. A cross between a horse and a donkey, they are stupid and mean. To plow a straight furrow with a mule took strength of body to hold on to the plow, strength of will to steer the mule, and strength of mind to maintain focus on a point in the distance.
To the third would-be follower who came to him, Jesus said, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Those words reminded me what my father learned from plowing fields with mules. These lessons might teach us about how to follow Christ without being distracted from our destiny in him.
We learn the first lesson about how to live our lives as disciples in Luke 9:51, “When the days drew near for (Jesus) to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Luke frames everything from here until Jesus enters Jerusalem as a journey. While Jesus makes stops along the way, he remains focused on Jerusalem and what will happen there. He keeps the cross and the empty tomb before him every step of the way.
Now, I’ve never plowed a field, but I understand that in order to make straight furrows, one has to focus on a point of reference and never lose sight of it. As followers of Jesus, he is that point of reference for us. In Philippians 3: 12-14, Paul admits he has not yet reached the goal. Yet, he affirms:
I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul’s words remind me of an African-American Spiritual, “Eyes on the Prize.” One verse says:
I got my hand on the gospel plow
Won’t take nothing for my journey now
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Yet, all of us know how difficult it is to keep our eyes on the prize. Our hand keeps slipping of that gospel plow. We find it hard to hold on. Here’s where we can learn a lot from plowing a field with a mule!
The first lesson is: “Never get mad at the mule!” No matter how ornery a mule is, you gain absolutely nothing by getting angry at it, because it is, well, ornery! Remember what I said, mules are mean and stupid! They define dumb animal! The only thing likely to happen if you kick a mule is the mule will kick back. From what I gather, mules kick much harder than we do.
Sometimes, we encounter people who are like mules. You know, they’re just plain ornery, like the ones Jesus’ advance team encounter in that Samaritan village. A lot of painful history passed between Samaritans and Jews. They hated each other, so no wonder when the villagers rejected Jesus, James and John offered to give them the first century equivalent of a shock and awe campaign. These sons of thunder suggest in The Message: “Master, do you want us to call a bolt of lightning down out of the sky and incinerate them?” Instead, Jesus rebukes them and keeps on moving.
We need to remember while Jesus commanded people to come after him, he never coerced them. He invited men and women to follow him, but he never insisted they do. Instead, throughout his ministry, Jesus practiced what some call “detaching with love” from those who rejected him. He remained free to follow God’s call, to keep his face set toward Jerusalem, and left them free to follow their choice and experience its consequences.
I wish contemporary followers of Jesus could learn this from the Master. We gain nothing by giving people a hard time for rejecting the good news. It grieves me when I hear voices raised in anger to announce the good news by saying how our nation is in trouble, because we’ve rejected our Christian principles. Wouldn’t it make more sense to speak the truth in love? Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on compassion for others rather than condemnation? Remember: Never get mad at the mule!
Plowing a field with a mule teaches us another important listen about discipleship. We should not take it lightly, like the first would-be follower who comes to Jesus, breathless, saying, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus reminds him of the costs of following him. While the New Revised Standard Version may sound more familiar, The Message startles us into awareness, saying, “Are you ready to rough it? We’re not staying in the best inns, you know.” Remember I said plowing a field takes “strength of body to hold on to the plow, strength of will to steer the mule, and strength of mind to maintain focus on a point in the distance.” To follow Jesus requires similar strength. He reminds us it takes everything we have when he says, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
On Tuesday night, I spoke with Elizabeth, an old friend from my Doctor of Ministry group at San Francisco. I told her about our recent Natural Church Development Survey and our limiting factor of Passionate Spirituality. Now, Elizabeth taught spirituality at the Southern Campus of San Francisco and she is a spiritual director. I listen when she speaks about spirituality. She said the problem is many people don’t understand how difficult it really is to live spiritual lives. I agree, because we live in a time when convenience comes before commitment in congregations, when people seek quick fixes, rather than long term healing.
One of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors may be A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene H. Peterson. He takes the title from an unlikely source, the atheist Frederick Nietzche, who wrote in Beyond Good and Evil, “The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’… is that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” Jesus knows following him requires such surrender for the long haul. Just as a field takes hours, even days of hard work to plow, life in Christ cannot be fruitful, if it’s only a passing fad.
The third lesson about plowing a field with a mule is keep moving forward. You can’t keep going over the same ground again. You have to leave the past behind you. Jesus comes across a person along the way and he invites him to follow him. Well, the man says, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Now, it appears to be a reasonable request. In that society, the duty to the dead was considered sacred. Yet, Jesus answers in a way that seems less than compassionate, maybe even a little cruel.
Yet, in The Message, Peterson pulls out the meaning in what Jesus said, “First things first. Your business is life, not death. And life is urgent: Announce God’s kingdom!” For many of us, we forget to keep first things first. We focus more on death than life. We keep going over past hurts until the pain prevents us from any forward movement. We put off Jesus’ call, because we still have guilt over what we did. No place do we find more truth in Peterson’s paraphrase than in the church of Jesus Christ. We forget how urgent life is; we forget our business is life, not death. We fail to recall our first chief end: “the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind.” Unless things change, they will list the cause of death for this church and others like it as “Forgot to live!”
I’ve already suggested the final lesson we can learn about following Christ from plowing a field with a mule near the beginning of this sermon. Remember I said, “in order to make straight furrows, one has to focus on a point of reference and never lose sight of it.” When one plows, one ought never look back, because one will lose sight of the point of reference. The same lesson applies when running a race. Many runners, riders, and drivers lose and even crash, when they pause to check what’s behind them.
The last would-be follower of Jesus is like the first, eager to follow him, except he has other things on his mind. Peterson really captures what we would say, if Jesus called us today, “I’m ready to follow you, Master, but first excuse me while I get things straightened out at home.” We have so many things we have to look after, so many people depending on us, Lord, really we’d love to follow you, but we have to take care of them, then we’ll get back to you. Yet, we know how Jesus answers in the New Revised Standard Version, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Peterson puts it in plain language, “No procrastination. No backward looks. You can’t put God’s kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.”
“Seize the day!” Carpe diem! The only time when we can follow Jesus is now. The only place to which he leads us is the kingdom of God. Listen, I know life happens. Sometimes, we can feel exhausted by the strength it takes to hold on to the plow, the strength it takes to steer the mule, and the strength it takes to focus on a point in the distance. So, let me suggest something. Let’s let go of the reins of our lives and let Jesus steer. Let’s seek God’s strength to help us hold on. You and I, all we have to do is to keep our hands on the gospel plow. Let’s take nothing for our journey now. Keep our eyes on the prize, hold on!
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Luke 7:11-17
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 6, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
In the June Crossroads, I wrote about a question people have about worship. Often they ask me, “What’s Ordinary Time?” I explained how it simply refers to those weeks in the church year that do not fall in Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter. Yet, I added how “during Ordinary Time, we discover… Jesus makes the everyday anything but ordinary by his presence.”
According to psychologist, Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, we live our ordinary lives from a set of beliefs about how the world works. We believe bad things will not happen. We expect events will make sense. We assume all events will fall into neat categories of good and bad. We may argue we know how life is not fair, how tragedy doesn’t make sense. Yet, when the world comes crashing down around us, nearly all of us ask, “How could this happen? Or why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?” Tragedy turns our ordinary lives upside down. It pushes us beyond our everyday understanding.
We do not need to know anything about the status of widows in Jesus’ time to feel our way into the scene we encounter in Luke 7:11-17. We grasp how at this moment, for this one woman, the worst possible thing happens, nothing about it makes sense, and the death of her son, her only son casts aside every neat category. In Jesus’ time, widows were pushed to the margins of society. Yet, this woman found herself pushed even further. With the death of her son, her only son, everything she had would revert to her husband’s family. She had nowhere to turn, except to the kindnesses of strangers.
She finds herself at the gate of the village of Nain, inconsolable in grief. You see, even today, people in the Middle East do not keep mourning the sterile, silent affair we do in the West. They mourn loudly, with many tears. The scene Luke depicts could be seen repeated in villages and towns from Gaza to the Golan Heights, from Tel Aviv to Amman. The whole village joins in grieving and nothing can stop the tears.
Except, on this day, the kindness of a stranger stop the tears. His first words to the weeping widow are “Do not weep!” Of course, we know who this stranger is and where he’s been. He’s just been in Capernaum, where he healed the centurion’s slave, and celebrated this Gentile’s faith as unlike anything he’d ever seen. The slave was nearly dead, when the centurion told Jesus, “But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.”
Yet, here at an ordinary funeral in Nain, Jesus sees the widow’s grief. He knows her world crashes down around her and her life and her livelihood lies dead beneath the burial cloth. For the first time, Luke calls Jesus the Lord, as if to signal what’s about to happen. Yet, it’s love that gives the Lord power over death itself. Really something more than love compels him; it’s compassion. Jesus feels her loss deep down, in his gut. He crosses the ordinary barrier between men and women to speak to her. He breaks another barrier when he touches the bier, risking ritual corruption, so that he might bring resurrection. He speaks to the young man, addresses him as a person, saying, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” When he rises, he returns him to his mother, restoring her son, her life, her world to her.
I don’t need to tell you how we experience moments like the widow. Maybe, we may not face the absolute destitution she did, but we need to know there are places on this planet where women in her situation would. Yet, we know how sad it is to bury a parent, a sibling, even a spouse, but to bury a child is tragic. My experience as a pastor proves Ronnie Janoff-Bulmann’s theory, because when children precede their parents in death, it dashes the way we think the natural order of life works.
Yet, we know other tragedies that defy our ordinary way of looking at life. A man sacrifices everything for his wife and children, only to find out how she’s chosen another. A woman works for a company for decades, only to discover her pension’s gone. A family realizes a dream and buys a home, only to have it wrecked in the mortgage crisis. A nation watches as an oil spill threatens to destroy a region barely recovering from one of the worst hurricanes in history, only to learn how fragile a thing is life. I didn’t really need to tell you the story again, because we live it everyday. It’s the tragic reality that confounds our core beliefs and makes us wonder, “Where in the world is God in the midst of all of it?”
We can find the answer to our question in the question itself. God is in the midst of all of it, if we opened our eyes and our hearts to those moments that are anything but ordinary, when we hear Jesus say, “Do not weep!” when we feel Jesus’ touch, when we answer his command and rise! This story of the widow of Nain is unusual for a couple of reasons. First, only Luke tells it and he tells it beautifully. It’s really a masterpiece! It points back to the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. It points ahead to when Jesus himself, a son, an only son will die, and be raised by the command of his Father. It reminds us of a central theme in his Gospel, Jesus’ love of the oppressed and marginalized as a sign of God’s kingdom.
Yet, I find one thing most unusual. We’d miss it, if we weren’t looking for it. Almost every other miracle includes a request. The centurion asks Jesus to heal his slave. Jesus’ mother asks him to do something about the lack of wine. The blind, the lame, the leper, everyone asks Jesus to do something, even if he has to ask them first, What do you want me to do for you?” even if they only manage to ask, “Lord, have mercy!”
Yet, here, the widow makes no request, shows no faith. We can’t even say for certain whether she knew who Jesus was. She doesn’t ask, because she doesn’t know anything can happen. Instead, Jesus sees her need and out of compassion, from sheer grace, he raises her son from the dead and returns him to her.
Things that are anything but ordinary happen around us and to us all the time. Maybe, we don’t ask for them to happen, but they happen anyway. We may not recognize them as miracles, but that is what they are. It’s a miracle when the tears finally stop and we begin to heal. It’s a miracle when the man finds the strength to forgive her, maybe not for her sake, but for his. It’s a miracle when the woman receives help from others to rebuild her life. It’s a miracle when the family finds a way to make a new home. It will be a miracle when the marshes of Louisiana return to life, one day, if we work and pray.
Yet, the greatest miracle may be when we see Jesus for who he really is. With those villagers in Nain, we may be afraid at first to realize it, but we will come to glorify God for he is a great prophet, even more he is our Savior and Lord, the only Son of the Most High. In him, God looks favorably upon us and visits us in the losses of our lives, restoring us to life and wholeness.
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
John 16:12-15
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
Since September, the session and I have been trying to figure out who we are as a congregation and what God is calling us to do on this corner one block north of the City of Buffalo. We’re not alone in this quest. Right now, denominations, regional governing bodies, and congregations seek to define their core values and purpose and to imagine the future God desires for them.
In 2001, the United Church of Christ arrived at an answer to these big questions in their tagline, “Never put a period where God has placed a comma.” It helped to launch “God is Still Speaking,” one of the most visible denominational marketing campaigns I can recall. Needless to say, I envy them!
Army chaplain and Assemblies of God minister, Captain Stephen Pratel looked into the story behind those words. He believes the late Gracie Allen wrote them. Many of you may remember her as the better half of Burns and Allen, a popular husband and wife comedy team from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. They made their mark in movies, radio, and early television. While Gracie always played something of a ditz, she was actually a bright woman with keen insight.
In 1964, as Gracie was losing her fight with heart disease, her husband, George began to grieve his impending loss. They had been together since their twenties. George told her that not only did he not want her to die, but he also didn’t want to live without her. Without her, he could only see the end of everything he loved and trusted. Captain Pratel writes, “Gracie wrote a note of comfort to her devastated husband. In it she said simply, ‘George, never put a period where God has put a comma.’” She placed it among her papers, so that he would find it when she was gone.
We can’t be sure, but those simple words seemed to make an impact. After her death, her husband, George Burns experienced a rebirth in his career. He appeared on stage and starred in a number of movies. The Sunshine Boys and Oh, God! 1 and 2 are only three I recall. A United Church of Christ pastor, Larry Reimer wrote about George’s life after Gracie, “He died at age 100, having lived the life of the comma.”
In grammar, a comma invites us to take a breath and think about what comes next. We place a period where we pass sentence and have nothing else to say. Nowadays, I wonder whether we use periods too much. We cut off conversations too quickly. Think about how politicians and pundits talk about topics on talk shows or write about them in newspapers and magazines. They write and talk in sound bytes, using too many periods, even exclamation points, designed to hammer home their argument, rather than open up a dialogue.
Even within the church, we seem to use periods, rather than commas. Whether we speak of the global, national, regional, or local level, the period and even the exclamation point dominates the debate. Regardless of what issue comes to the floor, whether we stand on the right or the left or the middle, we believe we have the answer, period, case closed. Closer to home, we tend to use period too much when we talk about life and what lies ahead for them. Out of desperation, we think only in periods, rather than commas.
When the Pilgrims embarked on their venture to the new world, their pastor, John Robinson was forbidden to join them on the Mayflower. Before they left, he offered them a curious blessing, “There is yet more truth and light to break forth from God’s holy word.” Robinson realized what Gracie Allen knew, “Never put a period where God has placed a comma.” God still speaks to us, if we would only listen to the Son, who sends the Spirit from his Father to lead us to a new day.
Before the festival of Passover, Jesus knew the time had come to place a period on his earthly work. Tomorrow, on Friday, at Golgotha, he would use an exclamation mark to say, “It is finished!” On the first day of the week, God would raise him from the dead to complete his glorious sentence. Yet, tonight, he sees only questions marks in the eyes of the eleven men, who’d followed him for three years. John begins the story of this last night, saying, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Jesus spends their last night together, preparing them for what’s next as best he could.
When Jesus arrives at our passage today, he’s been talking to the disciples a long time. Three, almost four chapters precede this point. Have you ever known a time when you just couldn’t listen any more, when you felt as if your head would explode and your heart would break, if you had to take in one more piece of tragic truth? You’ve looked at every option for treatment and know there’s nothing more to be done. You’ve tried and tried to love him, but love doesn’t seem to be enough to take away his addiction. You’ve made every effort to help her, but she doesn’t want to listen. All of us grasp what Jesus means, when he says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”
Yet, Jesus knows he still has more to say to them; he knows “There is yet more truth and light to break forth” for us. While his earthly ministry may be over, his eternal work has only begun, so he promises his followers the Spirit of truth, his constant presence to guide us into all truth. While Jesus’ earthly life reaches a period, God places a comma at the end, by sending the Spirit to continue the conversation with God’s Word, who has yet more truth and light to bring us for the living of these days.
Now, it’s only reasonable to wonder how we tell the difference between the Spirit of truth and what some call, “the committee in our heads?” How can we tell it’s really God speaking and not our parents or grandparents or whoever set our spiritual compass? How can we distinguish the Spirit of truth from any one of the number of voices in church and culture claiming to have the answer? How can we discern between the Holy Spirit and spirits that may be less than holy? While we ought to “never put a period where God has placed a comma,” I believe we shouldn’t just simply say whatever pops into our heads, or do whatever feels good and call it the Spirit’s leading. Evidence of why this approach fails litters the history of the church and leads to our current confusion. The spiritual and emotional wreckage on the lives of believers demands we “test the spirits to see whether they are from God,” as we read in 1John 4:1.
Jesus offers a few ways to discern whether it’s the Spirit or not. First, he tells us the Spirit will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears and declare to us the things that are to come. Jesus means we must listen carefully to see whether we hear him speaking. Now, it may seem like a tall order, but it means we place everything we hear up against what Jesus said during his earthly ministry and what God said down through the ages. In other words, we need to line up what we think the Spirit says with what Scripture teaches. Notice what John Robinson really said, “There is yet more truth and light to break forth from God’s holy word.” Even one of our own denominational bywords, “The church reformed and always reforming,” carries this caveat, “according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit.”
Second, Jesus says the Spirit of truth will not draw attention to himself, or to believers, or to the church, or anyone or anything other than his Father and him. Remember, “He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Someone once called the Holy Spirit, “the in-between God.” In his work, he goes between the Father and the Son and us, seeking to bring us into their relationship. A recent sermon by the Reverend Canon Charles K. Robertson compares the relationship between the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and us to a dance in which the Triune God witnesses to the essence of the divine life, which is unconditional love. He writes,
- It is even more remarkable then that God, who in the Dance needs no other, did choose to create and redeem a people—no even more, choose to create and redeem you, me, each and every individual we encounter—so that we might join in this Dance. The invitations have been sent. There are to be no mere spectators on the dance floor. No outcasts, no outsiders. We are called by God to see ourselves as God sees each of us and thus discover ourselves to be, like the Persons of the Trinity, truly beloved.
Canon Robertson reminds me of a third and final test of whether a word is of the Spirit or not—”Is it filled with grace?” Does it bring people together or does it drive them further apart? Does it value others as beloved children of Abba, our brothers and sisters in Jesus, and co-conspirators with the Spirit, or does it put them down? While we may not find this test in John 16:12-15, it lies behind Jesus’ repeated command in these chapters, “Love one another.” I believe God is love, and lives in love as Trinity, and longs for us to join the Dance by loving God, one another, and our neighbors as ourselves.
With Gracie Allen, I believe, “Never put a period where God has placed a comma.” With John Robinson, I believe, “There is yet more truth and light to break forth from God’s holy word.” I believe our Lord’s promise of an Advocate, a Friend, a Helper, the Spirit of truth who comes to guide us into all the truth. I believe amid all the changing words of our generation, all the conflicting voices in our culture, God still speaks the Eternal Word, if we would only listen.
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
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John 14:8-17
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Pentecost, Sunday, May 23, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
I remember the first sermon I ever heard,
maybe not every point, perhaps not every word.
Yet, I hear that message like it was yesterday.
Listen: Here is what the preacher had to say.
My parents presented my youngest brother, Ray,
for baptism. My brother, George and I were there.
Ray was three years old on that very special day.
We left the sanctuary when it was over.
I cannot recall who lead us out and to where,
but I overheard the preacher, who told us of
a madman, who thought himself a knight, who made fair
a wench, and worse, by naming her Dulcinea.
I remember that first sermon I ever heard,
only this illustration, not every last word.
Yet, its message remains strong with me to this day.
Now, listen to what this preacher has to say.
While I won’t go on in verse, I used verse to capture that moment from my childhood, because it came to me that and it seemed appropriate. The illustration I overheard when I was seven or eight speaks of the power God’s love has to transform us. I don’t remember all Mr. Erwin said, but I believe he compared Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha to God, who does not see things as they are, but how they will be. When he sees Aldonza, the serving wench and sometimes prostitute, he believes her to be Lady Dulcinea. He sings to her,
I have dreamed thee too long, never seen thee or touched thee,
but known thee with all of my heart.
Half a prayer, half a song, thou hast always been with me,
Though we have been always apart.
Dulcinea… Dulcinea… I see heaven when I see thee, Dulcinea,
And thy name is like a prayer an angel whispers… Dulcinea… Dulcinea.
I think Mr. Erwin’s point was something like God loves us enough to see beyond who we believe ourselves to be to how we really are, God’s beloved children, for whom God sent the only begotten Son to demonstrate how deep God’s love goes for us. I would add God gave the Spirit to show how we may be more than we imagine and do more than we dare to dream. Like Aldonza, we may doubt, even deny this message of love. We may want to continue in the illusion that we are unloved and unlovely. Yet, like Don Quixote, God keeps singing our name to us, calling us sons and daughters, children of the most high. Today, when we confirm Dylan, Michael, Amanda, and Devon, we will call them each by name again and again. I invite them to hear their name in a new way, as a blessing to be more than they imagine, as a promise to do more they dare to dream. I invite you to imagine Jesus speaking your name, and with every breath you take in, let the Spirit dare you to dream of greater things.
John 13: 1 states, “Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” He knows how difficult his departure will be on them, so at the beginning of chapter fourteen, he tells them why he’s going, to prepare a place for them, to get ready their dwelling places in his Father’s house. Confused, Thomas asks where he is going. Jesus answers him and tells them all, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Well, Philip still feels at a loss and blurts out, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus takes a deep breath. He wonders whether Philip had been paying attention or not. He’s heard Jesus’ words and seen Jesus’ works. What more does he need to realize Jesus reflects the Father? Yet, now, he surprises them all, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” He promises them he will do whatever they ask in his name, “so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” He’s far from over, “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
Overhearing Jesus’ words, we may have more than a few reservations. All of us know stories of unanswered prayers. Some of us have doubts about what we are able to do and we’re not so sure about doing greater things. Yet, we overlook these critical words, “the one who believes in me.” I know you remember how I say belief does not mean merely giving intellectual assent to a lot of abstract doctrines. I’ve said before “believe” comes from a root word, which means, “to live by.” Recently, I discovered the word may relate to another word, leof, from which we get the word, “love.” So, let me ask you, when you tell family or friends, “I love you,” do you only mean to describe something you think? Now, you know, when it means something, “I love you,” involves your emotions and will, your heart and soul, even your guts! No wonder, Jesus’ next words to his disciples are, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth… You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”
Jesus knows and we need to learn we are not able to keep his commandments under our own power. We need the Advocate, the Spirit of truth, holding our feet to the fire, holding our hands when we’re afraid, and when we hold our breath, whispering in our ears, “Breathe!” Only then can we keep Jesus’ commandments. Only then will we have the peace he promises us, saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Two weeks ago, when I preached on the Advocate, the Spirit of truth, I mentioned this book, Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan. While I admitted I hadn’t read it or even purchased it at the time, I bought it and read it this week. It lived up to what the book’s website promised:
- In the Forgotten God book and DVD, Francis Chan contends that we’ve ignored the Spirit for far too long, and that without Him, we operate in our own strength, only accomplishing human-sized results. It’s time for the beloved church of Jesus Christ to reverse the trend of neglect. Let’s pursue the Spirit-filled life of effectiveness God desires and we desire.
While I won’t tell you everything Chan wrote, I will share an unusual feature of the book. At the end of every chapter, he includes a biography of a person who pursued such a Spirit-filled life. After the last chapter, Chan challenges us with “The Final Biography.” He writes,
- What if the last biography were about your life? What would be written here? Would we read stories about the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit or stories about what you have accomplished on your own? Don’t be discouraged if there is not a lot of the Holy Spirit’s working in your past. Pray in complete faith right now. Ask God to have His Spirit work so mightily in you that it would make for an amazing biography. A biography that speaks of a life so supernatural that no one would even consider giving you the glory. A biography that displays the power of the Spirit and lifts up the name of Jesus to the glory of God the Father. Amen.
I pray Dylan, Michael, Amanda, and Devon will have such biographies, because I believe the Spirit already rests on these four young people. I hope they will pursue a Spirit-filled life, in which they accept they are more than they imagine and can do more than they dare to dream.
I have the same prayer for each of you, sitting in these pews today. Today, you’ve overheard how greatly God loves you, how deeply Jesus trusts you with his work here in earth. You and I can do greater things than we dare to dream. We are far more than we imagine. As Dylan, Michael, Amanda, and Devon confirm promises made at their baptism, I call you to reaffirm promises you made with words from a song by Natasha Bedingfield,
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
Don’t even think of saying you’re too old or it’s too late or you’re too busy. As long as the Spirit gives you breath, God still has a purpose for your life and our life together.
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
from Church Powerpoint
John 17:20-26
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 16, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
Over the last few weeks, we’ve looked at what Jesus said to his disciples during supper on the night before he died. John records in chapter thirteen, verse one, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” If you look up chapters 13 through 17 in a Bible where the words of Jesus are in red, you’ll see almost no black, except for a few questions from his confused followers. He commands them to love. He promises them an Advocate.
At the end, he prays. First, he prays for himself, saying, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.” He asks to carry out the purpose for which God gave him out of love to the world: to give eternal life to all who believe in him. Next, he prays for his disciples, the eleven men who had followed him for three years. Acknowledging God gave them to him, he asks God to save them from the evil one and sanctify them in the truth. Finally, Jesus prays for those who will come to believe, because of the witness of those who followed him. He prays for you and me. I choose to read this prayer from Peterson’s The Message, so that we may hear it as addressed to us as if for the first time. Hear what Jesus most desires for you and me.
I’m praying not only for them
But also for those who will believe in me
Because of them and their witness about me.
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
The same glory you gave me, I gave them,
So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—
I in them and you in me.
Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,
And give the godless world evidence
That you’ve sent me and loved them
In the same way you’ve loved me.
Father, I want those you gave me
To be with me, right where I am,
So they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me,
Having loved me
Long before there ever was a world.
Righteous Father, the world has never known you,
But I have known you, and these disciples know
That you sent me on this mission.
I have made your very being known to them—
Who you are and what you do—
And continue to make it known,
So that your love for me
Might be in them
Exactly as I am in them.
We find ourselves in Ascensiontide, those ten days between the Ascension of our Lord, which always occurs forty days after Easter, on a Thursday, and Pentecost, which always occurs fifty days after Easter, on a Sunday. I never quite know which way to go on the Seventh Sunday of Easter. Preachers can go with the texts appointed for the Ascension or with those appointed for today. I went with something of a hybrid, because I believe it fits where we are as the body of Christ at the beginning of the second decade of the third millennium after Christ. We find ourselves with those disciples, staring at the sky, seeking one last glimpse of glory, rather than recognizing Jesus remains near at hand.
Some Christians consider the Ascension a hard article of faith to swallow. They balk at the idea of Jesus, floating away on a cloud, to sit at the right hand of God. Yet, Luke tells the story at the end of his gospel and at the beginning of Acts. Paul professes in Romans 8: 34 we have no fear of condemnation because, “It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.” Both Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds confess, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” The Heidelberg Catechism asks what many of us may wonder, “What benefit do we receive from Christ’s ascension into heaven?” It gives three answers:
- First, that he is our Advocate in the presence of his Father in heaven. Second, that we have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that he, as the Head, will also take us, his members, up to himself. Third, that he sends us his Spirit as a counterpledge by whose power we seek what is above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God, and not things that are on earth.
I only want to focus on the first of those three answers today, “(Jesus) is our Advocate in the presence of his Father in heaven.” I imagine Jesus, sitting at the right hand of God, pleading our case for us. Both of them have tears in their eyes, as Jesus prays to his Father as he prayed on his last night in the flesh,
“The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.”
You don’t need me to tell you how Jesus’ final prayer goes unanswered. All of us know the scandal of division within the church. I’m not naïve enough to believe all Christians can or should be one, big, happy family, as some suggest. I believe some of the differences that divide us matter. I don’t think unity in Christ means uniformity in doctrine or practice. I believe the church is meant to be like any healthy family, where people are welcomed, despite their differences, because at the end of the day, we belong to God and each other.
Yet, I fear we fail to remember the real reason Jesus prays for us to be one. Jesus doesn’t want us to be one, so that we may all hold hands and sing, “Kum Ba Yah.” Jesus wants us to be one, so that the world might believe God sent him. It may trouble us to think, but it’s true. We are Jesus’ last will and testament. He depends on you and me to get his Word out by sharing our faith, to be sure, serving others, no doubt. Yet, if we listen to his prayer for us, being of one mind and heart with him and with his Father and ours offers our primary witness to the world around us.
When people wonder what keeps people away from church, I think of the wisdom from the sixties cartoon, Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” The unchurched look at denominational divides over who may serve, listen to congregational conflicts about how to worship, and want nothing to do with us, because they can find fighting enough in the world. Ian did a wonderful monologue for his Theater Class, based on an experience of his Biology teacher, Mr. Allen. He grew up in the Baptist Church in the south, but left the church because he couldn’t reconcile how folks who believed in one who said, “Love one another,” could keep people of color out of the church. I appreciate the honesty of those who edited The Presbyterian Hymnal, because they restored a verse to “The Church’s One Foundation.” This verse laments the effect of our disunity on our witness,
Though with a scornful wonder
This world sees her oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping;
Their cry goes up: “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.
Yes, Jesus prays for us to his Father. Both of them have tears in their eyes, as he prays the same prayer he offered for us on his last night in the flesh,
“The same glory you gave me, I gave them,
So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—
I in them and you in me.
Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,
And give the godless world evidence
That you’ve sent me and loved them
In the same way you’ve loved me.”
With those disciples on the hillside, outside of Jerusalem, we stand and stare into the sky to seek a glimpse of Jesus, but he gives his glory to us in one another. We find this glory by loving one another, by imitating the intimacy God has with Jesus, and Jesus has with his Father. It reminds me of powerful words near the end of Hemingway’s book, For Whom the Bell Tolls. The hero, Robert Jordan lies dying of wounds. A Quaker caught up in the Spanish Civil War, Jordan sends Maria, his beloved away to safety with these words,
- “Now you will go for us both,” he said. “You must do your duty now… Now you are going well and fast and far and we both go in thee… Now thou art doing what thou should. Now thou art obeying. Not me but us both. The me in thee. Now you go for us both. Truly. We both go in thee now. This I have promised thee.”
“The me in thee,” that is what Jesus promises: To be with us always to the end of the age. Wherever we go, he goes with us. Whatever we do gives witness to him to an unbelieving world. His glory may only be revealed in our oneness in him. Let us join our voices and hearts in a song by Scott Wesley Brown and David Hampton. May it provide our prayer of response to Jesus’ prayer for us:
One heart, one Spirit, one voice to praise you,
We are the body of Christ.
One goal, one vision: To see you exalted.
We are the body of Christ.
And to this we give our lives to see you glorified.
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Continue reading about “Last Things First—‘So That the World May Believe’”
John 14: 15-31
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 9, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
Last week, as thunderstorms passed through the area, I thought of my dad. When I was a young child, my dad drove a bucket truck for an electrical construction company, which had a contract with the power company in D.C. and Maryland. Whenever a severe storm passed through the area, the phone would ring in the middle of the night, and my father would leave. While Dad didn’t work on the lines, it was still dangerous,so whenever he left, I’d wonder if he’d return. Whenever I hear thunder and see lightning, I remember those nights.
Something like a storm stirs on the night Jesus sits at table with his disciples. John begins his account of this evening, saying, “Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” In John 13:33, he tells the eleven, after Judas leaves, “Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, You cannot come.’” Like a parent, he leaves his last instructions with them, the new commandment, “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love another.”
Yet, sometimes, love is not enough to calm our fears. Sometimes, kisses won’t make it all better. Throughout his final words to his disciples on the night before he dies, Jesus addresses their fear of being abandoned, of becoming orphans. He promises them his leaving has a purpose to prepare a place for them. He continues, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
Yet, they have questions, as we still do, about where he’s going and why he must leave them; about when they might see him again, if ever; about how they will carry on in his absence. Jesus reminds them how he would remain alive in them through love, by keeping his commandments, by remembering what he taught them. Near the end of chapter fourteen, Jesus gives them a parting gift, saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Yet, lately, I’ve been feeling less than peaceful. Many of our hearts are troubled and some are afraid. I suspect the season after Easter may be the hardest in the life of the church.We experience something of a let down after Easter Sunday. “Alleluia! The Lord is risen!” we say. We reply, “Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!” Yet, we almost want to add, “So, what?” What difference does the resurrection make here, where we feel as if our hope’s in vain? We look at the empty pews and we long for the days when they were filled. What difference does the resurrection make now, when we feel as if nothing’s changed for the better? We look at our lives and what we’ve lost. We long to know whether any of this makes a difference. We offer one another words of peace, but our hearts are troubled. We know we ought to love one another,but we fear our hearts will be broken yet again. We remember all Jesus taught, but it seems as all we have are memories, and they slip slowly away.
Jesus understands how hard this time after Easter is. He understands how even more difficult his Ascension will be, when he would no longer be present with us in the flesh, and we might be tempted to equate his absence with abandonment. Jesus grasps better than we do how sometimes love is not enough, because we may not have compassion enough to reach out to others, courage enough to risk what love requires, confidence enough to live with hope when we cannot see him.
So, Jesus makes another promise: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” This promise seems to echo one God made through Jeremiah, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Jesus knows what God discovered long ago: Commands to love and promises to keep are not enough. When our faith fails, and it will, God remains steadfast. When our hope wanes, and it will, Jesus stays with us. When our love dies, and it will, the Spirit blows over the embers and brings them back to blaze. We need to know in our hearts and feel in our bones, we are never alone.We need to trust when we call, one will come alongside us with compassion, courage, and confidence enough to continue.
John uses an unusual Greek word here, “Parakletos.” The New Revised Standard Version translates it as Advocate for that is what the Holy Spirit is. He stands with us in all of life’s trial, pleading our case before God, and showing us evidence of God’s ongoing care for us. Other versions translate it as Helper for that is what the Holy Spirit is. She comes to our aid when we need healing and encouragement. Some versions translate it as Comforter for that is what the Holy Spirit is. He wraps us in the love of God when we need to be held close. One translation uses Counselor for that is what the Holy Spirit is. She listens to us and leads us as we sort out God’s will for our lives. Peterson uses Friend for that is what the Holy Spirit is. He’s there whenever we need him and walks alongside us. I would suggest Teacher for that is what the Holy Spirit is. Jesus says, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”
Yet, of all the translations, I may prefer how the New Jerusalem Bible renders this word. It doesn’t translate it; it uses, “Paraclete.” I like this option, because it keeps us guessing about the Holy Spirit. Of all the persons of the Trinity, none may be more mysterious than this one, like the wind, as Jesus says in John, chapter three, it blows where and when it will. We cannot contain the Spirit and all of our words fall short, when we try to describe who he is or what she does.
We need to discover the place of the Holy Spirit in our faith. I keep seeing a book in Barnes and Noble and Life Resources, Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit. Written by Francis Chan, senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California, I haven’t read it yet or even purchased it for that matter, but the title challenges me. I went to the book’s website and read this description:
- In the Forgotten God book and DVD, Francis Chan contends that we’ve ignored the Spirit for far too long, and that without Him, we operate in our own strength, only accomplishing human-sized results. It’s time for the beloved church of Jesus Christ to reverse the trend of neglect. Let’s pursue the Spirit-filled life of effectiveness God desires and we desire.
As I look at the church, including this church, I see exactly what Chan means. When we speak about our ministry,we talk about what we can do with the limited resources we have. When we talk about our mission, we speak about who we want to reach and who we want to help. We forget the limitless resources available to us, if we only dared to ask for and trust in the Spirit’s power. We forget the needs we can meet, if we only let the Spirit open our hearts.
As I look at my life, Chan challenges me, and maybe he challenges you, too. Like children, we fear the storms of life and we live from those fears. Like the disciples, we have many questions about where Jesus is going. We operate under our own power. We keep brave faces, when deep down, we’re scared. We say we’re fine, when deep down, we’re anything but fine. We try to love, when deep down, we know love is not enough. We need someone to strengthen us when our power fades, to hold us when we’re afraid, to encourage us when we’re at the end of our ropes, to give us full hearts to love when ours are empty. Jesus promises us the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, to provide all of it and abundantly more. So, let us pray with the church in all generations, “Come, Holy Spirit!”
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
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