3-25-06 Sermon by Pastor Barbara Currie

WHEN WAS IT THAT WE SAW YOU THIRSTY?
Sermon for OGHS Sunday, March 26, 2006
Isaiah 35:1-7, John 3:16 and Matt. 25:37

One Great Hour of Sharing! The quotes and scripture you have already heard really have preached the sermon. I will briefly add a few thoughts and connect all that has been said to that great verse in John 3:16 that tells us how much we are loved by God, the creator, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

Today’s offering is not just something that churches in our denomination do; there are nine churches that participate in giving to this offering including the Am. Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Disciples of Christ, the Methodists, the AME Zion and the Church of the Brethren. This special offering was started in 1949 so that’s 57 years it’s been going on.

Our theme this year is Water. We who have such easy access to water may find it hard to imagine what it would be like to live where water is not easily available if at all. The flip side of such scarcity is the tremendous floods that devastated so many communities in this past year. During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many of our citizens became personally aware of the water problem and how much damage it can produce. Neither of these situations are at all funny, so I wondered whether or not it was appropriate to share some water humor with you. Please be assured that I’m not making light of these very serious situations. But can you imagine what might happen to baptisms if we had a huge drought? The Baptists would change to sprinkling instead of immersion; the Methodists and United Church of Christ would have to use damp cloths or wet ones, and the Presbyterians might be forced to give out rain checks.

While we are talking about baptisms, let me share one more thought. Do you know that some churches meet in drive-ins? That might be okay; however, I wonder if baptisms would then take place in car washes? That might be going too far!

Do you know that one out of every six people in the world is without safe drinking water? Over two million people, mostly children, die each year of water borne diseases. These are people that God loves. These are the people that God is talking about when God says that he loves the world soooo much that he gave us his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus says that when we are feeding the hungry and giving water to the thirsty we are doing it to him. Any of us who are parents certainly know how much it hurts when our children are suffering and how pleased we are when someone cares for them, helps them, loves them. God sent us Jesus to show us the way, to save us.

As much as I love the Matthew 25 scripture, I do have a hard time in accepting the verses that say Jesus is going to divide us into two groups like the sheep and the goats, one group to inherit the kingdom (Mt. 25:33-34) and the other group to be thrown into eternal fire prepared for them by the devil (Mt. 25:41). I believe that everyone that has ever been born is on the list that Jesus Christ has come to save. Every one that God created is on that list to be saved: the rich and the poor, the American and the Palestinian, the gay and the straight, the black and the white, the Anglo and the Hispanic, the beautiful and the ugly, the disabled and the healthy, the Muslim and the Christian. I could go on and on. God gave us Jesus so that he could find us and show us the way. I do believe that those who sin do suffer pain and that at some point they have to repent, turn back to God. I’m not sure when or how that will happen, maybe after death. I believe it’s never too late to turn your life back to the One who loves us so much.

Some of these people I’m talking about are scared to be found; they may be hiding. They certainly wouldn’t want to turn up in church. As one of my resources said, “Some have the idea that Christ has come saying, “I’ve got a message from my Father; boy, is He ever mad at you!”[1] For these folks, it feels safer hiding in the dark instead of coming out into the light. It’s just too hard to imagine that God loves them. It’s not until you know that God is seeking you in love, not in condemnation, that the gospel becomes Good News for you.

My sisters and brothers, I can imagine that these people who have been harmed by water: too little, too much, not safe, and so on are wondering if God is punishing them or if there is such a thing as God. We have that opportunity to share the Good News by giving our money and our hands on help to those that are suffering. I wish that everyone here today would have the opportunity to actually go to give assistance to those who are in such need. One’s own experience, as Peter Cram reported and as I have found, is something that you will never forget, an experience that undoubtedly does as much, if not more, for you as it does for those you go to assist. There are many opportunities for you to go and serve. If you don’t have the time or money to go far away, our Conference office is arranging teams to assist the folks in Alstedt, NH, whose homes were damaged by the rains. See the notice in today’s bulletin. If it’s not the time or if you physically are unable to do the hands-on help, there are two other important things that you can do: donate your money generously and pray vigorously. God gave us Jesus and now that Jesus is no longer here on earth, who else but us, his followers, are left to do the work of going and making disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching, loving and caring, doing and being. Sometimes there seems to be so much to do that we could get discouraged; however, our faith is a faith of hope and we have been promised that God is with us always to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). On top of this we have resources like One Great Hour of Sharing and Church World Service where we put our resources together with other Christians to help in so many ways. I pray that all of us will be blessed by having the opportunity to share what God has given us. Amen

[1] Jim Fitzgerald, Preacher’s Magazine Lent/Easter 2006.

3-19-06 Sermon by Pastor Barbara Currie

ANGER AND JUSTICE
Scripture: Exodus 20:1-17, John 2:13-22
Sermon for Lent 3B, March 19, 2006

Have you ever felt confused if you look in the Bible to try to find out how God wants you to live? There are certainly a lot of different rules, especially in the Hebrew Bible. The most famous grouping of rules is the Ten Commandments, sometimes called the Decalogue which means ten words. If you keep reading after the chapter that ----read for you this morning, you will find many more commandments, different lists of how to live. In the New Testament both Jesus and Paul give us many different instructions about how we should treat each other and God. For myself, I think the answer is summed up by Jesus in Matthew 22: 37-39 when he was asked what is the Greatest Commandment : 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 'This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Both of these are taken from the Hebrew Bible: The first part is from Deuteronomy 6:5 and the second from Leviticus 19:18. Today I want to look briefly at the Ten Commandments and then focus on Jesus and his anger in the Temple.

The Ten Commandments are given to Moses after God has brought them out of their slavery in Egypt and during the process of making a covenant with them, to bring them to a new land and to be with them always. These words were more than rules; they were a way of life. They were not given as some short sound bytes but in a narrative form, telling a story of the relationship of God and the Israelites. They speak of God’s holiness and of love and justice for our neighbors. Besides being in narrative form they are really part of a religious ceremony describing the covenant between God and the people. The first three commandments concern the relationship between human beings and God; the fourth established the principle of Sabbath rest; the final 6 regulate relationships with one another. The words are spoken, expounded on and then the people respond by making a vow, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” These kinds of words were etched on stone but more importantly they were etched on the human hearts of those that heard them. We must remember that Jesus was part of this Hebrew religion that had a covenant with God; however, Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise in Isaiah to do a new thing. In the gospel of John, Jesus’ identity is very closely tied to his Father’s, and it is an identity of the unity of peace and love. So what are we to make of this explosion of Jesus’ anger?

First we need to set the scene, go back for some historical background. Passover was a spring holiday, a holiday of renewal and of freedom for the Jewish people. Rev. Ed Markquart describes it thus: “It was Passover time and the city was jammed. …The hackers were hocking their wares, “Lambs for sale. Lambs for sale.” “Good deal on matzo; come have your Passover dinner with us.’ What a madhouse. Dirty streets and dusty mules. Camels baying off in the distance. Pilgrims chanting their prayers. What a mess. But it was a great week for business and a great week for making money. …Thousands of people were crammed in and around the temple and sacrificial animals being sold and money changers all around the courtyard.” Just try to imagine the chaos of so many folks shouting and buying animals. The sellers were making big money off the temple business. It was the biggest racket in town. People would bring their roman and Greek coins with images of the emperor on them. These coins could not be used in the temple because they were considered unclean due to the pagan image. So they had to be exchanged for Jewish ‘kosher’ coins. Any of you that have traveled in foreign countries know how easy it is to be overcharged when you have to exchange currency.

The purpose of Temples or other religious buildings then and now is to provide a place where people come to be in contact with God, to give thanks and to ask forgiveness of wrongdoing. In Jesus day the temple was also the place people went to present their sacrifices. In the days before Jesus, such a sacrifice was fairly easy. In the rural setting people usually had sheep or goats or pigeons right there on the farm. But in the cities both now and then, folks don’t usually have animals around their apartments. So when it was time to take a sacrifice to the temple, the temple authorities made it easy by having sacrificial animals for sale right there for you. Of course you had to buy them and had to have temple coins to pay for them. Having the money changers there in the temple was another service provided from the Temple authorities.
The richer people would buy the larger animals at a much inflated price; for example a lamb bought in the country would be $1 and at the temple, $15. One source equated this business at the temple to be worth about $170 million in today’s dollars. Quite a racket! This business was plain and simply extortion.

Our gospel reading today tells us that Jesus walks into this full-service Temple and sees what is going on and he becomes tremendously angry. He takes some cord, probably the belt of his tunic similar to what I am wearing, and lashes out with it. He tosses over the tables of the money changers and the sellers. He opens the cages and let’s the doves go free; he chases out the cattle and the sheep from the courtyard, shouting all the time: “Stop this! Get these things out of here. Stop using my father’s house as a marketplace. Get out! Get out!”
Now in the gospel rendering of this passage in the other gospels, Jesus says, “Is it not written my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers!” It seems to me from my research that Jesus’ anger was both an anger at injustice—the dishonest dealings, extortion, of those doing business there as well as the irreverence—the lack of respect for God and the things of God. I think it’s clear that Jesus did not confine God just to the temple, yet this was a place—a building--dedicated to the Holy One; and therefore, worthy of respect. This was his Father’s house and I’m sure he was offended at the extent that it had become a commercial enterprise. I believe that Jesus saw these merchants and money changers as part of an unjust system whose day was done. There is another reason for Jesus anger—a protest against religion of the time. Yes, all of these things that had gotten out of hand and were rejected by Jesus were originally put into place to facilitate the worship of God, the sacrifices to show the people’s desire to please God, to praise God, and it ended up turning into an exploitation of the people. Jesus wanted to cleanse out this evil, make religion what it is suppose to be: loving God with all your heart and mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself. What do you think Jesus would want to cleanse our temples and churches of today? Would he be horrified or pleased at the huge amounts of money spent each year in some churches for building and renovating facilities? If he were to visit our budget discussions, what do you think he would have said? Our charge budgets as well as our national budgets show where our values are. I wonder if he would be pleased with our priorities. He might look at the pastor’s package and compare it to our mission/outreach budget, and ask me and you if we believe this distribution is just? One of our local pastors was so concerned about the lack of giving to missions that he gave back all of his salary raise to the missionary fund. I was very impressed by this, and it’s still on my mind.

What do you think about Jesus getting so angry? Let’s talk a little bit about anger. Some people seem to have a lot more anger than others; certainly anger comes out in different ways. I wonder how you handle anger. Do you think it is an okay emotion to have? The APA defines anger as a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion that inspires powerful, often aggressive feelings and behaviors which allow us to fight and defend ourselves. I see Jesus’ anger as righteous anger that was important to cleanse the temple and the religion from unhealthy, damaging things. Robert McAfee Brown says we need moral outrage within the Christian community to motivate us to bring about the justice God wants in our society. It seems that anger signals attention to our awareness that all is not right in our world. The power of anger can increase our work of love and justice. Anger energizes us for action. It helps us say No to the Caesars of our day who clamor for our allegiance and want to move in directions where the poor continue to suffer and the rich continue to flourish. George Johnson, the director of the justice conference I went to in Tijuana, says, “This feeling of rage in the pit of one’s stomach has something to do with God. It is the presence of God in us that yearns for justice and hurts when injustice takes place.”

When it comes to the commercialization of religion, we have no scarcity of this type of activity that made Jesus so angry. One of my resources pointed out how many religious folks today exploit others—or as he put it—“cash in on our needs for forgiveness and a loving word—those who seek money so that God will bless them.” He goes on to say that the easiest ones to detect are what he calls the “modern merchants in the temple” and describes the “40 million dollar man in his prayer tower in the middle of the university named after him, a university built by funds raised from old ladies for the work of God.”[1] He also mentions another playful minister who turned his ministry into an amusement park where one can take a water slide for Jesus and buy the latest holy music sung by his daughter, his wife, etc.[2] He says these temple merchants are easy to see; harder to see is the disrespect and irreverence to God that comes from false teachings and false examples. He’s talking here about the teachings that link God with success of a worldly nature rather than a God who is concerned with the poor and oppressed. The Ten Commandments talk about having no other gods before the Lord our God. I wonder how many of those who have profited from the corporate scandals of recent years have considered themselves Christian. Who is your God and whom do you serve? As you know from scandals of TV evangelists and those highly placed in their denominations, ordained ministers are not exempt either. I believe that whenever we make an idol of material success and ignore our neighbors that are hurting, we have some soul searching to do. The eighth commandment is “Do not steal.” I had just finished my income tax when I read in a commentary, “Before we pat ourselves on the back for not robbing anyone this week, perhaps we ought to delve deeper. Along with other homeowners, I profit on my taxes from what I pay in interest on my mortgage. Am I a thief if I don’t advocate for comparable tax savings for those without homes, who are usually poor people? Am I living ethically when I support politicians who craft laws only in favor of those who are wealthy while millions go hungry, or when I buy clothing produced in factories where the workers have been paid unfair wages? Am I stealing when the richest one-fifth of the world’s population including my country uses up 86 percent of the world’s resources, while the poorest fifth only consumes 1 percent?”[3]

There is nothing wrong with prosperity, and I know that often times when we surrender our life to Jesus, abundance of all kinds tends to follow. There’s nothing wrong with that. We just need to be careful we don’t take the good that we have and make it into our God. The important point thing to look at is where your heart is and what kind of action your faith leads you to in terms of making this world a better place for all.

Lent is a good time to recognize our own complicity in both injustice and the commercialization of religion. Lent is a season of self-examination and I have a lot of attitudes and practices that need some examining and cleansing. What about you? I pray that we can all see our selves as we truly are and ask God for help and guidance in being more what God would want us to be. I’m so thankful that we belong to a God that loves and forgives, a God that promises to be with us always. Help us and have mercy on us all I pray. Amen


[1] Richard Fairchild, online sermon for Lent 3B.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Michelle Tooley in Hunger for the Word, Lectionary Reflections on Food and Justice, Year B, ed. By Larry Hollar, p. 68-9.

3-19-06 Sermon by Pastor Barbara Currie

ANGER AND JUSTICE
Scripture: Exodus 20:1-17, John 2:13-22
Sermon for Lent 3B, March 19, 2006

Have you ever felt confused if you look in the Bible to try to find out how God wants you to live? There are certainly a lot of different rules, especially in the Hebrew Bible. The most famous grouping of rules is the Ten Commandments, sometimes called the Decalogue which means ten words. If you keep reading after the chapter that ----read for you this morning, you will find many more commandments, different lists of how to live. In the New Testament both Jesus and Paul give us many different instructions about how we should treat each other and God. For myself, I think the answer is summed up by Jesus in Matthew 22: 37-39 when he was asked what is the Greatest Commandment : 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 'This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Both of these are taken from the Hebrew Bible: The first part is from Deuteronomy 6:5 and the second from Leviticus 19:18. Today I want to look briefly at the Ten Commandments and then focus on Jesus and his anger in the Temple.

The Ten Commandments are given to Moses after God has brought them out of their slavery in Egypt and during the process of making a covenant with them, to bring them to a new land and to be with them always. These words were more than rules; they were a way of life. They were not given as some short sound bytes but in a narrative form, telling a story of the relationship of God and the Israelites. They speak of God’s holiness and of love and justice for our neighbors. Besides being in narrative form they are really part of a religious ceremony describing the covenant between God and the people. The first three commandments concern the relationship between human beings and God; the fourth established the principle of Sabbath rest; the final 6 regulate relationships with one another. The words are spoken, expounded on and then the people respond by making a vow, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” These kinds of words were etched on stone but more importantly they were etched on the human hearts of those that heard them. We must remember that Jesus was part of this Hebrew religion that had a covenant with God; however, Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise in Isaiah to do a new thing. In the gospel of John, Jesus’ identity is very closely tied to his Father’s, and it is an identity of the unity of peace and love. So what are we to make of this explosion of Jesus’ anger?

First we need to set the scene, go back for some historical background. Passover was a spring holiday, a holiday of renewal and of freedom for the Jewish people. Rev. Ed Markquart describes it thus: “It was Passover time and the city was jammed. …The hackers were hocking their wares, “Lambs for sale. Lambs for sale.” “Good deal on matzo; come have your Passover dinner with us.’ What a madhouse. Dirty streets and dusty mules. Camels baying off in the distance. Pilgrims chanting their prayers. What a mess. But it was a great week for business and a great week for making money. …Thousands of people were crammed in and around the temple and sacrificial animals being sold and money changers all around the courtyard.” Just try to imagine the chaos of so many folks shouting and buying animals. The sellers were making big money off the temple business. It was the biggest racket in town. People would bring their roman and Greek coins with images of the emperor on them. These coins could not be used in the temple because they were considered unclean due to the pagan image. So they had to be exchanged for Jewish ‘kosher’ coins. Any of you that have traveled in foreign countries know how easy it is to be overcharged when you have to exchange currency.

The purpose of Temples or other religious buildings then and now is to provide a place where people come to be in contact with God, to give thanks and to ask forgiveness of wrongdoing. In Jesus day the temple was also the place people went to present their sacrifices. In the days before Jesus, such a sacrifice was fairly easy. In the rural setting people usually had sheep or goats or pigeons right there on the farm. But in the cities both now and then, folks don’t usually have animals around their apartments. So when it was time to take a sacrifice to the temple, the temple authorities made it easy by having sacrificial animals for sale right there for you. Of course you had to buy them and had to have temple coins to pay for them. Having the money changers there in the temple was another service provided from the Temple authorities.
The richer people would buy the larger animals at a much inflated price; for example a lamb bought in the country would be $1 and at the temple, $15. One source equated this business at the temple to be worth about $170 million in today’s dollars. Quite a racket! This business was plain and simply extortion.

Our gospel reading today tells us that Jesus walks into this full-service Temple and sees what is going on and he becomes tremendously angry. He takes some cord, probably the belt of his tunic similar to what I am wearing, and lashes out with it. He tosses over the tables of the money changers and the sellers. He opens the cages and let’s the doves go free; he chases out the cattle and the sheep from the courtyard, shouting all the time: “Stop this! Get these things out of here. Stop using my father’s house as a marketplace. Get out! Get out!”
Now in the gospel rendering of this passage in the other gospels, Jesus says, “Is it not written my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers!” It seems to me from my research that Jesus’ anger was both an anger at injustice—the dishonest dealings, extortion, of those doing business there as well as the irreverence—the lack of respect for God and the things of God. I think it’s clear that Jesus did not confine God just to the temple, yet this was a place—a building--dedicated to the Holy One; and therefore, worthy of respect. This was his Father’s house and I’m sure he was offended at the extent that it had become a commercial enterprise. I believe that Jesus saw these merchants and money changers as part of an unjust system whose day was done. There is another reason for Jesus anger—a protest against religion of the time. Yes, all of these things that had gotten out of hand and were rejected by Jesus were originally put into place to facilitate the worship of God, the sacrifices to show the people’s desire to please God, to praise God, and it ended up turning into an exploitation of the people. Jesus wanted to cleanse out this evil, make religion what it is suppose to be: loving God with all your heart and mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself. What do you think Jesus would want to cleanse our temples and churches of today? Would he be horrified or pleased at the huge amounts of money spent each year in some churches for building and renovating facilities? If he were to visit our budget discussions, what do you think he would have said? Our charge budgets as well as our national budgets show where our values are. I wonder if he would be pleased with our priorities. He might look at the pastor’s package and compare it to our mission/outreach budget, and ask me and you if we believe this distribution is just? One of our local pastors was so concerned about the lack of giving to missions that he gave back all of his salary raise to the missionary fund. I was very impressed by this, and it’s still on my mind.

What do you think about Jesus getting so angry? Let’s talk a little bit about anger. Some people seem to have a lot more anger than others; certainly anger comes out in different ways. I wonder how you handle anger. Do you think it is an okay emotion to have? The APA defines anger as a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion that inspires powerful, often aggressive feelings and behaviors which allow us to fight and defend ourselves. I see Jesus’ anger as righteous anger that was important to cleanse the temple and the religion from unhealthy, damaging things. Robert McAfee Brown says we need moral outrage within the Christian community to motivate us to bring about the justice God wants in our society. It seems that anger signals attention to our awareness that all is not right in our world. The power of anger can increase our work of love and justice. Anger energizes us for action. It helps us say No to the Caesars of our day who clamor for our allegiance and want to move in directions where the poor continue to suffer and the rich continue to flourish. George Johnson, the director of the justice conference I went to in Tijuana, says, “This feeling of rage in the pit of one’s stomach has something to do with God. It is the presence of God in us that yearns for justice and hurts when injustice takes place.”

When it comes to the commercialization of religion, we have no scarcity of this type of activity that made Jesus so angry. One of my resources pointed out how many religious folks today exploit others—or as he put it—“cash in on our needs for forgiveness and a loving word—those who seek money so that God will bless them.” He goes on to say that the easiest ones to detect are what he calls the “modern merchants in the temple” and describes the “40 million dollar man in his prayer tower in the middle of the university named after him, a university built by funds raised from old ladies for the work of God.”[1] He also mentions another playful minister who turned his ministry into an amusement park where one can take a water slide for Jesus and buy the latest holy music sung by his daughter, his wife, etc.[2] He says these temple merchants are easy to see; harder to see is the disrespect and irreverence to God that comes from false teachings and false examples. He’s talking here about the teachings that link God with success of a worldly nature rather than a God who is concerned with the poor and oppressed. The Ten Commandments talk about having no other gods before the Lord our God. I wonder how many of those who have profited from the corporate scandals of recent years have considered themselves Christian. Who is your God and whom do you serve? As you know from scandals of TV evangelists and those highly placed in their denominations, ordained ministers are not exempt either. I believe that whenever we make an idol of material success and ignore our neighbors that are hurting, we have some soul searching to do. The eighth commandment is “Do not steal.” I had just finished my income tax when I read in a commentary, “Before we pat ourselves on the back for not robbing anyone this week, perhaps we ought to delve deeper. Along with other homeowners, I profit on my taxes from what I pay in interest on my mortgage. Am I a thief if I don’t advocate for comparable tax savings for those without homes, who are usually poor people? Am I living ethically when I support politicians who craft laws only in favor of those who are wealthy while millions go hungry, or when I buy clothing produced in factories where the workers have been paid unfair wages? Am I stealing when the richest one-fifth of the world’s population including my country uses up 86 percent of the world’s resources, while the poorest fifth only consumes 1 percent?”[3]

There is nothing wrong with prosperity, and I know that often times when we surrender our life to Jesus, abundance of all kinds tends to follow. There’s nothing wrong with that. We just need to be careful we don’t take the good that we have and make it into our God. The important point thing to look at is where your heart is and what kind of action your faith leads you to in terms of making this world a better place for all.

Lent is a good time to recognize our own complicity in both injustice and the commercialization of religion. Lent is a season of self-examination and I have a lot of attitudes and practices that need some examining and cleansing. What about you? I pray that we can all see our selves as we truly are and ask God for help and guidance in being more what God would want us to be. I’m so thankful that we belong to a God that loves and forgives, a God that promises to be with us always. Help us and have mercy on us all I pray. Amen


[1] Richard Fairchild, online sermon for Lent 3B.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Michelle Tooley in Hunger for the Word, Lectionary Reflections on Food and Justice, Year B, ed. By Larry Hollar, p. 68-9.

3-12-06 Sermon by Pastor Barbara Currie

HOW TO FOLLOW JESUS
Scripture: Mark 8:31-38

You folks are lucky today. I’m going to start my sermon with a few jokes. Now I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. This week I obtained not one but two joke books. From Ann Lorber I borrowed the World’s Greatest Collection of Church Jokes and then in the mail I received “God is Still Laughing” by Chris Anderson. The other reason is that the focus of this sermon is denying oneself and taking up the cross to follow Jesus, not very light topics so let’s have a few laughs first. To start off let me tell you about my friend Pastor Carol. One Sunday morning she advised her congregation, “Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying. In preparation for my message, I want you all to read Mark 17.” The following Sunday she asked for a show of hands from those who had read Mark 17. Almost every hand went up. “Well, she said, Mark has only sixteen chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lying.” Another joke which I know is not true for those here today but may be so for those absent, “What is the first thing many UCC people give up for Lent?” Going to church. Now some of you know that we have a policy that we don’t cancel church because of bad weather. Whoever shows up will worship together. Not so with all churches. One Sunday after a terrible snow storm, there were only two people that showed up for worship: the minister and a farmer. Pastor Jim said to the farmer, “Well, I don’t guess we’ll have a service today.” The farmer replied, “If only one cow shows up at feeding time, I feed it.” So let’s move on to the more serious part and hopefully the sermon can feed you!

Scholars say that our scripture today is a turning point in the book of Mark. Jesus and his disciples are in Caesarea Philippi and Jesus asks Peter, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter finally “gets it” and calls out that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus then feels he needs to start talking about what is going to happen to him, his suffering and death, sometimes called his passion. Now Peter who loves Jesus so much doesn’t want to hear any of this. I can imagine that he thinks a Messiah should live forever and not suffer. Jesus strongly rebukes him —maybe because the human side of Jesus may have been tempted to escape the awful death that was in front of him. After rebuking Peter, Jesus calls both the disciples and the crowd together and says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it.” What does all this mean? What does it mean for you and me living here in NH in this 21st century?

Now there are places in the world today where the Christian church and its members are martyrs. There are Christians who are victims of violence because they work to bring peace and justice to the suffering world. According to an Italian news source in 2004, there were over 100 Christians killed since 2000 in 40 different countries.[1] I will have this resource footnoted on the sermon page on our website if you want to check out more details. We know that there are still 4 peacemakers being held in Iraq. I’m not at all sure that I would have enough courage to put myself in harms way for my faith. It’s something that bothers me a lot as I want to be able to be that strong of a follower of Jesus. Living in this country we may be upset at things like removing the manger from the mall at Christmas or forbidding school prayer; however, in reality we seldom would have the threat of death come to us; however, there are many, many ways we have of denying our self and taking up the cross. To illustrate this point I want to share this illustration from Fred Craddock, “We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1000 bill and laying it on the table—“Here’s my life, Lord, I’m giving it all.” But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1000 for quarters. We go through life putting our 25 cents here and 50 cen5ts there…Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time.”[2]

Let’s go first to what denying one self means. Very simply put, the denying self that Jesus is talking about is to love God more than parents, siblings, spouse or children and of course possessions. It is saying Yes to Jesus and No to oneself in terms of secular, earthly desires. It is saying No to those actions that promote self or one’s business that are not the actions God approves of. It’s saying No to the easy life that doesn’t reach out to love and serve others. I do want to point out that over the history of the church, leaders—usually male—have used self-denial to perpetuate subjection of women in the church and the society. So this is a tricky thing. I believe God wants each of us to be the best that we can be and when we are, we can better do God’s work in the world. Let me give you some examples of denying self: To deny self means to seek God’s will, let God lead us. To deny self means to deny overeating, overdrinking, overworking and other things that take us away from God, cause us not to be healthy. To deny self means to take care of a person in need rather than giving yourself extra pleasures. To deny self means to give up personal wants for the greater good. Let me give you a personal example that most of you have heard before: I denied my desire to be near my children and bask in the warm sunshine in CA in order to answer God’s call for me to be your pastor here in Deering. The important part for me is not so much what we give up, as it is saying an unconditional and unhesitating “YES” to the voice of our Lord. Self denial is about being willing to take risks, to let go of familiar things and familiar thoughts and let God lead us.

Let us now go to a discussion of taking up your cross. I’m indebted to Rev. Richard Fairchild for much of this part of the sermon. He reports on the answers from a discussion group that told stories of extreme hardship, sickness, loss, handicaps as examples of taking up their cross. “They confused the suffering that is inflicted upon them by the world—a suffering that comes without their choice or decision—with that which comes because we have chosen to be faithful.” I never thought of cross in this latter way. We’ve all heard things like, “everyone has their cross to bear”, and this usually refers to what one is suffering. Think about it for a moment. The cross that Jesus had to bear, had to carry, had to be crucified on was a cross he could have avoided. Satan offered him legions of angels to rescue him; the human Jesus could have avoided the confrontation in Jerusalem and quietly ministered in Galilee. But Jesus chose to follow the road his father had mapped out for him. “A cross is something we pick up because we desire to follow Jesus. It is not something that falls upon us because we are made of mortal flesh and live in a decaying world, though how we react to those things may, in fact, turn them from an affliction that we bear to a cross we bear.” (Fairchild) A wonderful example Fairchild uses to illustrate this point is an aging spouse who faithfully tends for and cares for their partner even when that spouse can no longer recognize them or communicate with them. They have made a decision to be faithful—and the burden they bear is indeed a cross, not simply an affliction. Here are some more examples of taking up our cross daily: choosing to take care of an aged parent; focusing on the call that God puts on us daily; to be compassionate and kind to those who really irritate us; to work on the relationship of a relative or friend that is not easy to like; to go against what our culture/media say is a success if it doesn’t fit with what Jesus says is the way to live.

Another point that Fairchild mentions is that the cross we are called to bear is our very own—it’s not the same as Jesus’—or your mother’s—or your child’s. Our crosses are shaped specially for us by our own life issues, culture, age, and the call of God. It is like Jesus’ cross in the sense that it involves offering ourselves to God and to our neighbors in complete love and obedience to God, no matter where that may take us. Our motives will not be—how will this help me, but how will it serve God. If what we do is for the purpose of getting into heaven, we might as well forget it. Our Gospel today after talking about denying oneself and taking up our cross daily says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?” v .35-6. Or listen to St. Francis, “For it is in giving that we receive, and it is in dying to self, that we are born again to a living hope.”

Christ calls us beyond our known borders. And he promises to be with us until the end of the time. Could we do these things without the presence and guidance of the Spirit? I doubt it. This is difficult stuff and it is made easier when we get the ball rolling, marvelous things start to happen. With God at our side, we will experience joy. Remember Paul’s words in Romans, “whatever happens, in Christ we prevail. Neither death nor life, neither things present nor things yet to come, shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” We remember that Jesus’ life did not stop with the cross; there was a resurrection. Praise be to God for life, eternal life as this Lenten season takes us through the valley of darkness to the ecstasy of rebirth.
Let Jesus’ love and life be our guide. Amen and Amen.


[1] http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=7838&eng=y
[2] Cited in Leadership (Fall 1984) 47.